Newly released job figures show the unemployment rate falling. Meanwhile, since the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, gas prices have gone up. Michael D. Yates, an economist and associate editor of Monthly Review, discusses whether the rise in gas prices further hurts the economy.
In the process of reconstructing the lives of her ancestors, Carla Peterson uncovers the rarely acknowledged achievements of nineteenth-century African Americans in New York. She brings to the forefront a vital yet forgotten part of American history and culture in the book, Black Gotham.
In 1883, the Supreme Court had ruled the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional and turned a blind eye to the reality of racism, essentially legalizing the brutal prejudice of the Jim Crow era. Historian Lawrence Goldstone discusses this pivotal moment in American history in his new text, Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903.
Commentator George Johnson gives us a look at the world of sports in his regular 3-minute sports drill. This week George discusses the latest on the NFL labor situation.
Compiled by Smithsonian Folkways, "Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology" is being called the most definitive box set on jazz to date. The compilation features 111 songs on six CDs that chronicle the history of jazz music through its legendary innovators: Armstrong, Ellington, Basie, Parker, Gillespie and many more. As producer and project director, Richard Burgess explains why the collection took seven years to complete.
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