Race in US History

Rapper Ruby Ibarra reflects on her Filipino-American experience and the role of language in this spoken-word poem.

While we know that "race" is a social construct and not a biological fact, "racism" still exists. In this audio reading Lisa Delpit - scholar, author, writer and mother-writes to her daughter about her own experiences with racism growing up in the United States.

In this segment of an interview conducted by Studs Terkel, Eileen Barthe, a government relief case worker during the Great Depression, remembers an experience that caused a recipient of relief to face deep humiliation.

In an interview with Studs Terkel, Virginia Foster Durr, a prominent American civil rights activist, reflects on life during the Great Depression, particularly the way that people on government relief felt shame and guilt over their own suffering and poverty, rather than blaming the capitalist system.

In 1935, W. E. B. Du Bois published an influential book titled Black Reconstruction in America. This audio excerpt, from a chapter titled “The Propaganda of History,” questions the ways in which Reconstruction was being studied and taught at the time.