PODCAST · society
Into America
by Trymaine Lee, MS NOW
Into America is a show about being Black in America. These stories explore what it means to hold truth to power and this country to its promises. Told by people who have the most at stake.
Episodes
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MS NOW Presents: Clock It with Symone and Eugene
Symone Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels were once at odds as White House staffer and White House reporter. Now they’re friends and colleagues—each co-hosting their own shows at MS NOW. But their off-air conversations are where the real action is. Their new show, “MS NOW Presents: Clock It” is…
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Preview of “Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order”
Rachel Maddow’s new series lays bare one of the most shocking decisions in American history. It’s story that reveals how an executive order authorizing the mass roundup of innocent Japanese Americans came to be, the powerful players who engineered it, and the burn order that tried to erase it…
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BONUS: Trymaine Lee Joins Chris Hayes to Talk About His New Book
As a bonus for Into America listeners, we're sharing Trymaine's recent conversation on Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes podcast. Trymaine discusses his new book, “A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America" and talks about the weight of being a Black man in...
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Uncounted Millions BONUS: Nikole Hannah-Jones & Michael Harriot Live
In a follow up to the series Uncounted Millions: the Power of Reparations - which chronicled the remarkable story of Gabriel Coakley, one of the only Black Americans to ever receive reparations for slavery – Trymaine Lee hosted a live discussion and debate on the future of reparations for Black...
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Join Into America at the 92nd Street Y
Into America has a live show coming up! Pulitzer prize-winning writer Nikole Hannah-Jones and acclaimed author and columnist Michael Harriot will join host Trymaine Lee onstage at the 92nd St Y in New York City on Wednesday May 29th. As a follow up to our “Uncounted Millions” series, Trymaine,...
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Uncounted Millions BONUS: The GU272
In “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” host Trymaine Lee used the story of Gabriel Coakley and his family to explore past and future conversations around reparations. That conversation has come to include educational institutions, many of which were built and sustained through...
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Uncounted Millions, Ep 5: Reparations Now
Can reparations be a reality for all Black Americans? In New York, the state Gabriel Coakley’s descendants now call home, the governor has signed a bill creating a task force to consider reparations for formerly enslaved people. It’s the third state to do so. But beyond local considerations, does...
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Uncounted Millions, Ep 4: The Cost of Healing
As the Coakley and Flateau families change and grow through time, so too does the conversation on reparations for Black Americans. In this episode of “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” both families move west to California, ultimately converging. Soon after, the Japanese Redress...
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Uncounted Millions, Ep 3: Things Fall Apart
Gabriel Coakley was an exception. But what about the rule? In episode 3 of “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” we’ll travel with Coakley’s descendants as they attempt to learn about the other side of their family, the Flateaus. Most Black families were met with nothing but their…
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Uncounted Millions, Ep 2: Take What's Owed
In episode 2 of “Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations,” Gabriel Coakley builds on the freedom and success found in the first part of our series by going after what’s been denied to most Black families in America: financial freedom. Trymaine Lee traces Coakley’s legacy to understand how a...
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Uncounted Millions, Ep 1: Let's Get Free
The movement for reparations is gaining traction across the country, as cities and states debate what is owed to the descendants of the formerly enslaved. This question – what is owed? – has plagued America since the Civil War. But what Into America discovered is that through a strange legal...
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Presenting Uncounted Millions: The Power of Reparations
Into America is back! In a new series, “Uncounted Millions,” we take a look at one of today's most pressing debates: reparations. On a journey that begins in the nation’s capital during the heat of the Civil War and ends in modern day Brooklyn, host Trymaine Lee follows the little-known story of...
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BONUS: Trymaine Lee Joins "Why Is This Happening?" Live in Chicago
Chris Hayes is on tour with his podcast "Why Is This Happening?" for a series of live shows. In Chicago, he celebrated 50 years of hip-hop at the House of Blues. He was joined by scholar Imani Perry, rapper Vic Mensa, and "Into America" host Trymaine Lee. Trymaine talked about why this music has...
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Ripples of Affirmative Inaction in California
Nearly 30 years ago, California voters approved Prop 209, which banned affirmative action for the state’s public universities. For some elite schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA, Black student enrollment plummeted, changing the campuses for decades to come. On Into America, we’re going back to Cali...
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UPDATE: Into Reparations with Nikole Hannah-Jones
California’s official task force on reparations has delivered its final report to the state legislature. The report includes a formula for determining direct financial compensation, along with more than 100 other recommendations, including establishing universal health care, implementing rent…
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Get Your Freaknik On (2022)
When the news of a Freaknik documentary hit Twitter, people joked about seeing their parents, aunts, uncles on film having too much of a good time. Freaknik was a legendary street party that started in Atlanta back in the early 80s and became a destination for young Black people to dance, watch...
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BONUS: Understanding Affirmative Action
This week, the US Supreme Court struck down the use of Affirmative Action in higher education, in one of the most widely watched cases of the summer. As part of his television reporting, Trymaine Lee had a conversation with professor Cara McClellan of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school…
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Aging with Pride
Every June, Pride month is a time for self-expression and celebration. But the road here was paved with struggle and sacrifice. From confronting police during the Stonewall Uprising, to fighting to stay afloat during the AIDS crisis, to battling in the courtroom for the basic rights of…
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‘Black Folk’ and the Soul of America
America as we know it today would be nothing without Black labor. From the first enslaved Africans who built our economy, to the unheralded agricultural and domestic workers during segregation, to the frontline workers who put their health on the line during the pandemic. Historian Blair LM…
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‘Absolute Equality’ in the Home of Juneteenth
In Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3: “the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” The day became known as Juneteenth, commemorating the actual…
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I’m Trym(AI)ne Lee
The future is now. Artificial Intelligence already exists in smartphones, helps power social media algorithms, and is accessible through countless apps. AI has generated rappers with records deals and political attack ads. But as AI gains mainstream attention, AI-powered software that helps...
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Don’t Send the Police: Freedom House Rides Again
Last week, Into America told the story of Freedom House, a Black-run ambulance service that defined American EMS in the late 1960s. Today, The Healing and Justice Center in Miami, FL operates Freedom House Mobile and Crisis Units, expanding the legacy of wellness from physical to emotional and...
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Don’t Send the Police: Send Freedom House
In May 2020, the murder of George Floyd inspired people to take to the streets in America and overseas, calling for cop reform, the defunding of police, or saying police should be abolished altogether. And as racial injustices continued, communities took matters into their own hands. The Healing...
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Writers Strike Black
The entertainment industry and its TV and film writers can’t get on the same page. For the first time in over a decade, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. Shows like Saturday Night Live have already stopped production, with more to come as the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and...
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Healing in Buffalo
In May of last year, Tops Supermarket in East Buffalo was attacked by a lone white supremacist. Motivated by “great replacement theory,” the shooter targeted an area densely populated with Black residents, leaving this community grief-stricken. Into America visited Buffalo and spoke with…
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For Delroy Lindo and Tracy McMillan, Art Imitates Life
Tracy McMillan’s dad spent most of her life in prison, getting out for the last time when she was in her 40s. But for all the movies and shows about prison, she hadn’t seen her experience portrayed on screen in a way that resonated with her. So, as a successful television writer and author, she...
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The Right to Life
Black women are three times more likely to suffer from pregnancy and childbirth complications than white women. And when faced with a health scare, terminating a pregnancy has been a way for doctors to save the life of the mother. But under strict new limits on abortion, doctors are often forced…
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Policing Jackson
The conversative, white majority in Mississippi’s state legislature has continued to systematically undermine the ability of its capital, the Black city of Jackson, to govern itself. Pointing to the city’s homicide rate — the highest of any major city in the country — state lawmakers contended…
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The Re-Freshed Prince of Bel-Air (2022)
In March of 2019, Morgan Cooper dropped a video on YouTube that quickly went viral. It was a short film that he made as a passion project, after he was struck with a flash of inspiration: What if the 90’s classic The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were updated for the 21st century? Three years later,...
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The Case of LaKeith Smith
In 2015, a police officer shot and killed LaKeith Smith’s friend, A’Donte Washington, during a burglary gone wrong. But years later, LaKeith is the one behind bars for murder. LaKeith was originally given a sentence of 65-years, after beingc onvicted of burglary, theft, and something called…
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Sacrifice Zones
When toxic chemical spill from a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio last month led to health concerns in the area, the disaster attracted widespread media coverage, action from Environmental Protection Agency, and a bipartisan push to enact stricter regulations on rail safety. Yet for...
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Teaching the Truth
Retired Florida professor Marvin Dunn has been dismayed at recent efforts to battle so-called critical race theory and limit the way educators can talk about race. Last year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Stop WOKE Act, which mandated that public schools teach race in a manner...
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UPDATE: Into Injustice for Breonna Taylor
The Louisville Metro Police Department has engaged in sweeping civil rights abuses against Black people, women, and people with disabilities, according to newly released findings from a Department of Justice investigation. “Shortly after we opened the investigation, an LMPD leader told the...
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How Basquiat Earned His Crown (2022)
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an iconic American artist who rose to fame in the downtown New York City cultural scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. Today, Basquiat’s legacy looms over us, larger than ever. His images and symbols grace Uniqlo t-shirts and Tiffany & Co jewelry campaigns. In 2017,...
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Street Disciples, Ep 5: We Gon’ Be Alright
Trymaine Lee reflects on the direction of hip-hop over the last decade: through the Trump and Biden administrations, the rise of Black Lives Matter, and the spread of COVID-19. He surveys the state of the culture in 2023, 50 years after the birth of the artform; and he looks ahead to what the…
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Street Disciples, Ep 4: If I Ruled the World
By the late 90s, rap was the world’s pop music. The money was flowing, creating hip-hop moguls and welcoming in the Bling Era. But as hip-hop went mainstream and gained commercial success, the rap music topping the charts had begun to largely shed its political messaging in favor of music that…
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Street Disciples, Ep 3: America’s Most Wanted
As hip-hop found its rhythm in the late 80s and early 90s, artists had to grapple with the scars of violence the drug war was causing within the community, using music videos like “Self Destruction” to hold each other accountable, and trying not to unravel in the face of what was happening in the...
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Street Disciples, Ep 2: Broken Glass Everywhere
By the 1980s, hip-hop artists were beginning to expand the party culture of hip-hop's early years and think about what they wanted to say with their music. Faced with a city wrecked by economic abandonment and neglect, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message” in 1982, calling...
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Street Disciples, Ep 1: The Concrete Jungle
Hip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the...
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Reconstructed, Ep 4: The Book of Trayvon (2022)
Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was never supposed to end up in an exhibit on Reconstruction at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. But then the 17-year-old boy was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, while carrying...
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Reconstructed, Ep 3: Keep the Faith, Baby (2022)
On June 17, 2015, a white extremist shot and killed nine Black people in the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina as they gathered for a bible study group. This wasn’t the first time Mother Emanuel had been attacked. In the 1820s, white people burned down Mother Emanuel in...
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Healing Tremé
New Orleans’s Tremé neighborhood is one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in America, and at the heart of that wasClaiborne Avenue. In the 1960s, construction of the I-10 highway cut through the community. But now, thanks to funding from the recent infrastructure bill, community residents might...
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Reconstructed, Ep 2: In Search of the Promised Land (2022)
In 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman asked a group of African Americans in Georgia what they needed most to start their new lives as free people. The answer: land. This led to Sherman’s order that every Black family in the region receive 40 acres, and an Army mule if they liked. It was a...
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Reconstructed, Ep 1: Birth of a Black Nation (2022)
In February 2022, Into America launched “Reconstructed,” a series about the legacy of Reconstruction. The story begins in the late 1860s, as the newly freed became citizens under the law and Black men gained the right to vote. Black Americans across the South suddenly had the power to exert…
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Where Are They Now?, 2022 Edition
We’re welcoming in a new year by checking in on a few former guests. Tavonia Evans, founder of the cryptocurrency Guapcoin, gives us the state of her digital economy after the fall of FTX. We also speak with Fragrance Harris Stanfield, a survivor of the Tops shooting in Buffalo, for updates on…
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Christmas, But Make it Black
Black Christmas music is a genre of its own. From originals like “All I Want for Christmas is You,” to our spin on the so-called classics, these songs have become a staple in Black households. In the spirit of the holiday season, Trymaine sits down with music industry veteran Naima Cochrane to…
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Into Our Mailbag
After nearly 3 years and 200 episodes, Into America is having its first mailbag episode! We’ve asked for questions from listeners, former guests, and friends of the show. From moments that Trymaine has never forgotten, to critical feedback from listeners, to the best place in Brooklyn to buy a...
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Bethesda’s Lost Colony
When Marsha Coleman-Adebayo heard a rumor that members of her church might be buried under a parking lot for a high-rise apartment building, she couldn’t believe it. This small plot of land in the wealthy, white suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, had once been part of the Black community that…
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#RIPBlackTwitter?
It’s been just over a month since Elon Musk became CEO of Twitter, capping off a months-long, controversial, $44 billion takeover. The company has drastically changed under Musk, from losing an estimated two-thirds of its staff to layoffs and resignations, to looser content regulations, to...
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Blue Skies, Black Wings
Since the advent of powered flight, African Americans have been fighting for a spot in the skies. During World War I Eugene Jacques Bullard made a name for himself as the first African American military pilot. But Bullard flew for the French Foreign Legion – because at the time, the U.S. military...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Into America is a show about being Black in America. These stories explore what it means to hold truth to power and this country to its promises. Told by people who have the most at stake.
HOSTED BY
Trymaine Lee, MS NOW
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Into America have?
Into America currently has 252 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Into America about?
Into America is a show about being Black in America. These stories explore what it means to hold truth to power and this country to its promises. Told by people who have the most at stake.
How often does Into America release new episodes?
Into America publishes regularly with 252 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Into America?
You can listen to Into America on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Into America?
Into America is created and hosted by Trymaine Lee, MS NOW.
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