Notes from America with Kai Wright

Birth, August 1965. Death, July 2021. So now what for multiracial democracy? Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the Supreme Court for Slate, explains how the Roberts Court has rewritten the Voting Rights Act to render it a dead letter law. We explore what, if

2021 began with an insurrection, and it’s remained quietly intense ever since. We open the phones for a six-month check in on the political culture of the Biden era. Kai is joined by Christina Greer, Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham Un

Today’s viral videos of police abuse have a long political lineage. But what if one of the oldest tools of copwatching is now taken away? Ron Wilkins takes us back to 1966, in the wake of the Watts uprising, in which he joined an early cop watch program

Remembering the life of Bob Moses, and his mission to build a more equitable America from the bottom up.  From teaching in New York City to registering Black voters in the 1960’s Mississippi, Moses was a measured man who believed leadership was about lis

If sports are a metaphor for life, what are they telling us about our society right now? Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation, and author of ten books on the politics of sports, joins Kai to talk about the “Pandemic Games,” the peril of chasing perfe

Charles Nailor was the first and only Black electrician on his crew throughout the 1980s | Courtesy of Charles Nailor

Haiti’s recent tragedies revives a conversation about disaster, aid, and how people recover. Then, a discussion about perspective on the 30th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots. After a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti’s southwestern region, man

Why do we equate macho bullying with competent leadership? The cautionary tale of Andrew Cuomo.  From sexual harassment to intimating deemed rivals, the list of accusations against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have crescendoed into a long awaited resig

This Halloween, we reveal the holiday’s often untold history and why connecting to the dead is important to so many people, from Ireland, to Mexico, to NYC. What about this time of year lowers the veil between the living and the dead, and what does this

One man’s ongoing effort to get justice for the abuse he endured at a U.S. prison in Iraq.  At the start of the Iraq War in 2003, Salah Hasan Nusaif al-Ejaili was working as a journalist when the U.S. military detained him inside Abu Ghraib, a prison tha