24 Podcasts That Confront Racism in America
Let’s have the hard conversation.
Podcasts alone won’t fix the undeniable racism, inequality, and injustice that Black Americans face, but they can deepen our understanding of the oppressive systems at work and our role in abolishing them today and every day. Below are 21 podcasts that help you confront anti-Black racism head on. This is by no means an exhaustive list — in fact, think of it as your starter kit to being a more informed ally.
For more podcasts by Black creators, visit the Podcasts in Color directory. And if you are looking for more ways to examine and confront your own racism and biases, we hope you will engage with these anti-racism resources. You can also find this playlist in its entirety on Pocketcasts.
The Black Experience
Code Switch
This is NPR’s flagship podcast about race and culture, so it definitely contains multitudes. It takes on race and racism across a spectrum of identities and offers personal stories, historical context, and impactful analysis on the challenging past and present of race in America.
Start with: The Black Table at the Big Tent
The Nod
Although this show just ended its run, you should absolutely go back and listen to old episodes to hear its exploration of Black life. As much as hosts Brittany Luce and Eric Eddings talk about the struggles of the Black experience, they also celebrate the joys.
Start with: I Want That Purple Stuff
Truth Be Told
Our recommendation takes you all the way back to the first episode of the podcast where host Tonya Mosley explains how to find joy even while the world is burning, but where Truth Be Told consistently shines is in tackling the tough subjects with sensitivity and nuance.
Start with: Joy
Race and Racism
United States of Anxiety
United States of Anxiety continues to be one step ahead of the national discourse. This show began reporting on the extreme polarization visible in the lead up to the 2016 election. This season, they take us all the way back to the Civil War, when America first began trying to build a multi-racial democracy, and investigate why we still haven’t arrived today.
Start with: 40 Acres in Mississippi
The Stakes
From the team behind United States of Anxiety, this limited run series asks a simple question: How do we create a society that works for more people?
Start with: White Like Me
Scene on Radio: “Seeing White” series
This Peabody-nominated series is academic in its scope of exploring the roots and meaning of white supremacy.
Start with: Turning the Lens
The Heart: “Race Traitor” series
This series asks, even after you’ve intellectually rejected white supremacy, how does it show up in a room? Phoebe Unter, who is white, goes on a journey to disrupt the white value system she has inherited.
Start with: Who Taught You to Be White?
Reveal
Reveal is an investigative journalism show that digs deep into stories of of injustice and holds the powerful accountable. While not every episode is about race, structural racism is certainly an enduring theme.
Start With: Reproducing Racism
Black History Year
Black History Year connects us to the history, thinkers, and activists that are left out of the mainstream conversations. It challenges a history written exclusively by white people with one that introduces us to people who were left out of the history books.
Start with: Is This The Blueprint for Black Liberation?
Activism
Come Through with Rebecca Carroll
Host Rebecca Carroll wants us to acknowledge that race is at the center of every issue in America and that it’s finally time to have a conversation about it.
Start with: Elie Mystal: Call It a Lynching
Afropunk Solution Sessions
There is an urgency to Afropunk’s conversations about Black “culture, activism, and politics” — it seeks to find immediate solutions to historic problems.
Start with: Racism is a Virus
Pod Save the People
Hosted by organizer and activist DeRay Mckesson, Pod Save the People offers a salient analysis of the day’s headlines and their deeper impact on race, society, and culture.
Start with: Justice for Ahmaud Arbery
Time and Place
Floodlines
Floodlines takes us back to August 29, 2005 to investigate the ways in which Hurricane Katrina — a natural disaster — was very much man-made.
Start with: Antediluvian
1619
In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, 1619 looks at how slavery would be woven into the very threads of America’s democracy.
Start with: The Fight for a True Democracy
There Goes the Neighborhood
This is a podcast about how and why gentrification happens. Season 1 was presciently recorded in 2016 as developers begin pushing out Black and brown Brooklynites who had lived in the borough for generations. Season 2 takes us to Los Angeles as it become one of the least affordable cities in the country. As developers look for land that sits safely above rising sea levels, Season 3 introduces us to the “climate gentrification” happening in Miami.
Start with: Premium Elevation
74 Seconds
In July 2016, officer Jeronimo Yanez shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop in a Twin Cities suburb. The world watched the aftermath, live on Facebook. Yanez was charged in Castile’s death. Jurors found him not guilty on all charges June 16, 2017. 74 Seconds tells the story of the first police shooting to go to trial in the state of Minnesota.
Hi-Phi Nation: “Crime and Punishment” series
Although usually a show about philosophy, this season Hi-Phi Nation turns its microphone on the American criminal justice system, examining its “unquestioned assumptions about right and wrong, responsibility and excuse, freedom, protection, and discretionary decision-making.” Particularly poignant is “Gender Justice,” an episode that looks at how a desire for a more feminist and progressive prosecution may be contributing to mass incarceration.
Start with: Criminal Minds
In the Dark, Season 2
Curtis Flowers has been tried six times for the same crime. The second season of this acclaimed podcast investigates Flowers’ conviction, and the D.A. who has spent more than two decades trying to have Flowers executed.
Start with: July 16, 1996
Uncivil
Uncivil tells the untold stories of the Civil War. These are stories of resistance, disruption, spy missions, and more. It rewrites American history and puts Black resistors in the spotlight.
Start with: The Ring
Caught
According to the ACLU, one out of every three Black boys born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime. Caught looks at how mass incarceration often begins with juvenile detention.
Start with: I Just Want to Come Home
Ear Hustle
It was and is easy for our systems of mass incarceration to make the U.S. prison system feel to many like a monolith devoid of humanity, but Ear Hustle a shines light on the lives inside.
Start with: Bird Baths and a Lockbox
Natal
According to the CDC, black women in America are 3 to 4 times more likely to die than a white woman during pregnancy, childbirth, and in the year after the baby is born. Natal is a podcast series that looks at what it means to give birth while Black.
Start with: Myeshia’s Story
70 Million
This series documents how communities are addressing mass incarceration — through diversion, bail reform, recidivism, and the adoption of technology — at a local level.
Start with: How Bail Shackles Women of Color
It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders
Although It’s Been a Minute is ostensibly a weekly news and culture show, Sanders presses listeners to examine the everyday racism embedded in those headlines and culture. Sanders is an empathic and discerning host, but he’s also here to ask tough questions of his guests (and his listeners).
Start with: Not Just Another Protest
Did we miss a podcast you think belongs here? Let us know by email at editor@bellocollective.com or on Twitter.
The Bello Collective is a publication + newsletter about podcasts and the audio industry. Our goal is to bring together writers, journalists, and other voices who share a passion for the world of audio storytelling.
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