Reckon Interview

Cara Fitzpatrick on 'The Death of Public Schools: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America'

If you scroll through the news or turn on the TV, you see endless stories of book bans, teachers on strike, school shootings, legislative wars over curriculum, and, of course, the insane rumors about school children using litter boxes to go to the bathroom. Some of these stories are just copypasta Facebook nonsense, but there’s also a real fight at play here.  There's a fight over the future of public education and it’s been going on for decades. On this episode, we hear from Cara Fitzpatrick, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and editor with the national education outlet, Chalkbeat, and the author of "The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America.” That’s a provocative title and we unpack that, but Cara helps us understand the origins of education reform movements like school choice vouchers, charter schools and more. We also examine what may be on the horizon in the fight over public schools. And we also discuss why it’s so hard to get everyone on the same page about what role schools should be playing in our lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Will Alabama execute an innocent man? Beth Shelburne on the story behind 'Earwitness'

Will the state of Alabama execute a man for a crime he didn’t commit? That’s a question that’s been raised far too many times in the last decade, but right now it’s being raised for Toforest Johnson. And, shockingly, it’s a question being raised by the former attorney who prosecuted Johnson and put him on death row. Birmingham’s current district attorney, a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and a former Attorney General of Alabama have all called Johnson’s conviction into question. Three jurors from the original trial have also now said they feel duped. So what happened? In 1995, William Hardy, a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy was killed while working off duty as a security guard at a hotel in Birmingham. There were no witnesses to the murder. Meanwhile ten witnesses can confirm Toforest Johnson was at a club four miles away in downtown Birmingham. How did he become accused and then convicted of the murder of Hardy? That’s the story that Beth Shelburne unravels in her hit podcast Earwitness [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/earwitness/id1707026865]. She brings to life the stories of investigators and prosecutors desperate to close the case, the witnesses whose testimony seems to change by the minute, the judicial system that may have covered up a $5,000 payment to a witness, and the stories of the people working to get Johnson free. It's an important story and one that's now grabbed the attention of high profile celebrities like Kim Kardashian. But it hasn't yet persuaded Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. Shelburne also examines why the state of Alabama continues to be marching toward Johnson’s execution despite the evidence of his innocence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Victor Luckerson on the Epic Story of Tulsa's Greenwood District, America's Black Wall Street

You may think you know the story of the Tulsa race massacre. Maybe you’ve picked it up in pieces from HBO’s Watchmen or Lovecraft Country. Maybe you saw the documentaries that dropped a couple of years ago to commemorate the 100th anniversary of that horrific moment in 1921 when white Tulsans killed hundreds of people and destroyed the neighborhood known as Black Wall Street.  But no one has ever documented the story in such vivid, heartbreaking detail as Victor Luckerson in his 2023 book “Built from the Fire.” Victor, a journalist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker, The Ringer, New York Times, Wired and New York Magazine, painstakingly details what – and who – was lost in the fire that day. He charts the migration of people like the Goodwin family from places like Mississippi and Alabama, heading north and west to Tulsa, searching for a better life. He writes about how Tulsa became a mecca for Black businesses and Black culture. And he captures, through deeply researched storytelling, how it was all destroyed. But, importantly, he also tells us about what was rebuilt.  And then he describes the second “slow burning” of Greenwood that was carried out through decades of government policies that hollowed out America’s Black communities over the course of the 20th century. Buy the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/625438/built-from-the-fire-by-victor-luckerson/ [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/625438/built-from-the-fire-by-victor-luckerson/] Subscribe to Victor's newsletter here: https://runitback.substack.com/ [https://runitback.substack.com/] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Frederick Joseph on Patriarchy Blues

Frederick Joseph joins the Reckon Interview to discuss his new bestseller “Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood.” You may know Frederick as the force behind the Black Panther project, the effort that raised over one million dollars to help young Black children see Black Panther in theaters. He led a similar effort for young girls to see Captain Marvel. He raised funds to help people pay their rent during the early days of the pandemic shutdown. He’s poured a lot into the community. His first book The Black Friend has become one of those books about race that’s getting banned in school districts across the country. Frederick’s not afraid to confront big issues. And he’s not afraid to confront his own demons either. Patriarchy Blues is filled with essays that breakdown his ideas on what it means to be a man in America. The false binaries that we choose to accept between masculine and feminine traits. And the ways in which we’re all liberated if embrace womanist philosophies to move past some of these tropes. We’re all human beings who should get to experience the full depths of our humanity including chances to cry, laugh, get angry, get hurt, show love, show pain, sing and dance. There’s something in this conversation for everyone. So I hope you’ll give it a listen and then pick up a copy of Patriarchy Blues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Neema Avashia describes 'Another Appalachia'

Neema Avashia was born and raised in the bedroom suburban community of Cross Lanes, West Virginia. She’s an Appalachian through and through. She can sing Take Me Home Country Roads by heart. She knows the state’s mountains and waterways by heart. In her new collection of essays, “Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place,” she describes feeling more hillbilly than hindu. She wrestles with big questions about identity in her book. Could she really call herself Appalachian if her family didn’t go back several generations like her neighbors? What are the ways in which the ethics of community and kinship interact with an ethics of survival and assimilation? What does it mean to grow up in a business environment like chemicals or coal that extracts so much from its places and people? And what does it mean to see the people you love posting vile, hateful things about immigrants and people of color on Facebook?  Neema now lives in Boston as a teacher and advocate for her students and school.  On this episode of the Reckon Interview, she describes her Appalachian upbringing and how it feels to love and support a place from afar – even on days when it doesn’t feel like it gives you the love you deserve in return. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]