Terry Gross

Jamiles Lartey discusses policing in America. He is a staff writer for The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. He previously reported on criminal justice, race and policing for The Guardian, where he was part of a team that created an online database tracking police violence in 2015 and 2016.

After the Civil War, the federal government promised former slaves equality and citizenship. Historian Eric Foner says the failed promises reverberate today. Originally broadcast Jan. 9, 2006.

Washington Post reporter Matt Zapotosky talks about the attorney general's role in the Trump administration's forceful response to the largely peaceful George Floyd protests in Washington, DC.

The killing of George Floyd has inspired protests across the U.S. and around the world, with crowds evoking the names of other black men and women who have died in police custody — including Freddie Gray. In 2015, Gray was arrested in Baltimore, and put in a police van — shackled but with no seatbelt. At the end of what was later termed a "rough ride," Gray was unconscious and his neck was broken. He died a week later.

At 15, Eric Adams was beaten by police. He later joined the force and worked to reform NYC policing by co-founding 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. He retired from the force after 22 years.

Growing up in Aledo, Ill., the singer-songwriter longed to live somewhere "more romantic." Then she moved away: "Now, when I go back, I see the beauty in it," she says. Originally broadcast in 2017.

As millions of people remain socially isolated and anxious about COVID-19, several U.S. governors are at least making plans to relax controls in their states and revive economic activity — against the advice of many public health professionals.

New York Times science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. warns that the push to reopen is premature. "We're nowhere near getting on top of this virus," he says.

Of the roughly 100,000 Americans included in the official COVID-19 death count, 20,000 died in New York City in a period of two months. Time magazine reporter W.J. Hennigan recently spent several weeks looking into the practical challenge of how a city deals with so many bodies suffused with a deadly pathogen.