Thetis White’s class is diverse—filled with students from different races and backgrounds, who are all taught by a Black man. That’s not uncommon at Monroe Elementary in Brooklyn Park, a diverse suburb of Minneapolis, but it is rare in Minnesota as a whole, where fewer than one percent of teachers are Black men. Experts say […]
Series: Under-Told: Verbatim
Welcome to Under-Told: Verbatim, an Under-Told Stories Project Podcast.
We report from all over the world for PBS NewsHour on the consequences of poverty and the work of change agents addressing them. We’ve done extended interviews with hundreds of experts and people making a difference in their communities. In this podcast we’re revisiting those under-told stories so you can hear changemakers around the world in their own words. This is Under-Told: Verbatim.
Becoming a Black Homeowner in the Twin Cities
Buying a home is a rite of passage, a life-changing step—but in the Twin Cities especially, this crucial key to accumulating and passing down wealth is much harder to come by if you are Black. Just 25 percent of Black residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul own their homes. That’s far below the national average, especially […]
Colorism and Skin Lightening Products
Especially in the United States, many think of racism as a black and white issue—but less talked about is colorism, the preference for lighter skin within communities of color. Safiya Mohamed is a Somali American journalism student at the University of St. Thomas, where our Under-Told Stories Project offices are based. Our PBS NewsHour report […]
Reconnecting Rondo
Minnesotans, now more than ever, are waking up to the realities of racial inequity in their communities. In St. Paul, activists with ReConnect Rondo have a new suggestion: they want to build a land bridge over Interstate 94 to rejoin the old Rondo neighborhood, which was destroyed decades ago by the construction of the freeway. […]
Michael Osterholm on the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
It’s April 2021—the COVID-19 pandemic has been omnipresent for more than a year, and vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are rolling out across the United States. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve reported on essential workers, focusing especially on some of the most overlooked employees – in the U.S. some 50,000 meatpackers have had COVID-19 […]
A Mother’s Love
Lisa Clemons is a former Minneapolis police officer who founded a non-profit called A Mother’s Love—a brigade of people in bright pink t-shirts trying to bring back the metaphorical village they say it takes to raise a child. Clemons dreamed of being a cop since she was young, but left the department 20 years ago for […]
Bringing Back the Buffalo
Charging Buffalo is the first butchering facility on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota – the economic development alone is welcome in one of the poorest communities in the United States, but a place that treats the sacred animal with honor and respect means something more. Bamm Brewer is a member of the Oglala […]
The Condom King, Mechai Viravaidya
In the Bangkok restaurant Cabbages and Condoms, rubbers are everywhere: on sculptures, lanterns, even a condom Santa Claus at Christmastime. The place has become an icon for what’s widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful family planning programs. Bringing a little humor to a taboo-laden topic is the trademark of Mechai Viravaidya—or as […]
Defunding the Police
After police killed George Floyd on May 25, Minneapolis and St. Paul saw weeks of protests that spread across the world. Never before has such a clear demand emerged from the demonstrations: defund the police. The Minneapolis City council unanimously advanced a proposal at the end of June to create a new Department of Community Safety and […]
“Minnesota Nice” if You’re White
Our team actually lives in St. Paul and Minneapolis…which, on a fateful day in late May, became the epicenter of a protest movement that’s swept the world since: the death of George Floyd. We’ve been on the frontlines of this story for the PBS NewsHour. Alongside NewsHour producers Mike Fritz and Sam Lane, we produced […]
Molly Melching’s Breakthrough in Senegal
Molly Melching arrived in Senegal in the 70s as a student for what was supposed to be just six months, but instead spent the majority of her life working through the organization she founded, Tostan—which means “breakthrough” in the Wolof language, to convince more than 8,000 communities across eight West African countries to abandon female […]
George McGraw Digs Deep
George McGraw and his organization, Dig Deep, used to bring water access to communities in Africa. A few years ago, he turned his attention to the United States—he now works in the Navajo Nation. The native reservation spans twenty seven thousand square miles across parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, where 40 percent of the […]