Fresh Air

In 1990, Yusef Salaam was one of the five boys wrongly convicted in the so-called Central Park jogger case. Salaam spent nearly seven years behind bars and wasn't exonerated until 2002, when a serial rapist confessed to the crime. Salaam tells his story in his memoir 'Better, Not Bitter.'

Also, Kevin Whitehead reviews 'Black to the Future' by Shabaka Hutchings and the Sons of Kemet.

In 'How the Word is Passed,' writer and poet Clint Smith visits eight places central to the history of slavery in America, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation and Louisiana's Angola prison. "This history that we are told was so long ago wasn't, in fact, that long ago at all," he says.