Siri Hustvedt is a celebrated writer of fiction and nonfiction, who is inspired by the connections between the humanities and science.

Bryan Stevenson finds courage and compassion in James Baldwin’s writing, which helps him face some of the hardest realities of being Black in America’s brutal criminal justice system.

How NYC’s first Black mayor tried to balance concerns about public safety with demands for a more accountable police force -- and the violent resistance he faced from the police union.

New Yorkers reacted to George Floyd’s murder with mass protests demanding police accountability. NYPD met them with targeted violence and abuse.

We failed her long before the cops killed her. We’re failing thousands more children like her now. In this bonus episode, we meet one of those girls.

The answer isn’t simple, but it’s time to ask. Listeners weigh in with stories of their own efforts to solve problems with and without cops.

A retired NYPD detective says the force’s stubborn, insular culture was built to last. And Elie Mystal explains a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that made killing “reasonable.”

A cop in Westchester, NY, was disturbed by what he saw as corruption. He started recording his colleagues -- and revealed how we’re all still living with the excess of the war on drugs.

Saidiya Hartman introduces Kai to the young women whose radical lives were obscured by respectability politics, in the second installment of our Future of Black History series.