Throughline

In 1871, Ku Klux Klan violence in South Carolina got so bad that the governor sent a telegram to President Ulysses S. Grant warning that he was facing a state of war. Grant sent him Amos Akerman: a former Confederate soldier and slaveholder who became the U.S. government’s most zealous warrior against the KKK.

Guests:

Bernard Powers, director of the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston at the College of Charleston in South Carolina

Guy Gugliotta, author of Grant's Enforcer, Taking Down the Klan

Kidada Williams, professor of history at Wayne State University and author of I Saw Death Coming, A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction

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Political rebellions, family feuds, and power grabs – the founding of the Supreme Court has about as much drama as a Hollywood movie. In this week’s episode, the story of how the Supreme Court went from the weakest branch in the government to the powerful arbiter it is today.

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James Baldwin believed that America has been lying to itself since its founding. A sharp, funny, and insightful commentator on Black identity and American democracy, he never hesitated to bear witness, regardless of what it cost him. We speak with writer and professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. about how James Baldwin's words can help us navigate our current moment. This episode originally ran in 2020.

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The key to good communication is in the delivery – literally. This week on America in Pursuit, how the creation of the U.S. postal service transformed our political culture and helped start a revolution, one letter at a time. 

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Iran has been here before. For decades the country has gone through cycles of protest and repression at the hands of the Islamic Republic. What makes this cycle different? 

In this episode of Throughline from NPR, we speak to two Iranian experts about their view of the past, present, and future of Iran’s protest movement.

Guests:
Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC

Holly Dagres, senior fellow at the Washington Institute and curator of the Iranist on Substack.

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