With Good Reason

A story of Native American resilience comes to life in a new biography of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota medicine man and Catholic preacher. Black Elk was born in 1863 and died at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Another new book illuminates the life of a Pequot Indian activist and author who is little known today, but has been called the Native American Frederick Douglas. William Apess challenged the power structure of his day using the pen, the pulpit, and protest.

In her new book, Real Love, Sharon Salzberg--one of the world's leading authorities on love and meditation--shows us love isn't just an emotion we feel when we're in a romantic relationship. It's an ability we can nurture and cultivate. Also, Oliver Hill shares his journey in the 1960's from the segregated south, to black radicalism, to Transcendental Meditation with the Beach Boys. Also: How "The Pause" got started. We talk with emergency care nurse Jonathan Bartels, who just wanted to take a quiet moment to honor the life of the patient who had just died before people rushed in to clean up and change the sheets.

Southwest Virginia has seen a decline in coal and tobacco—two industries that once boomed in the region. Could hemp be a way to boost the local economy? And more.

South Carolina saw the statewide prohibition of alcohol in 1915. But not before the state established its own dispensary system more than a decade earlier. Plus: oral histories of moonshiners in Appalachia.

When Thomas Jefferson designed the University of Virginia’s central Rotunda, he set out to build a temple to the book, a stunning rebuke to the Christian churches that anchored every other college of his day. But Jefferson’s secular utopia didn’t pan out exactly as he planned.

With state support shrinking and the dependence on private support increasing for most public universities what does the financial landscape of the future look like? What makes an institution public? Is it the source of funding? History? Mission? Or something else?

Washington has its fair share of brown-nosers. We talk with the authors of Sucking Up: A Brief Consideration of Sycophancy about yes-men, now and through the ages.

Scholars, historic interpreters, and descendants of enslaved people recently gathered at Montpelier, the home of James Madison. They were there to create a rubric for historic sites who want to engage descendant communities in their work. We share stories and interviews from Montpelier's Summit on Slavery.

Poet Kiki Petrosino in her poem, If My Body Is a Text, reflects on a year of tragic outcomes during traffic stops between police and African American drivers. Plus: Most of us have heard of Negro League Baseball, but there were many other all-black sports leagues and teams across America in the 20th century. David Wiggins shares how African-American athletes built their own place for sports in a segregated world.

Wine, chocolate, and flowers. We talk with experts about these Valentine's Day essentials.

Maggie Walker was an African American teacher and businesswoman and the first woman of any race to charter a bank in the United States. There's now a statue of her in the former capital of the Confederacy. Plus: A town’s historical markers tell visitors the story of a place. But what do they leave out?

America is hooked on opioids—by one count, there are currently more opioid prescriptions than people in the southeastern United States. This week we’re taking a deep dive into the causes of the opioid crisis. And more.

Donald Trump’s election was seen by many commentators as a decisive statement by a marginalized White working class. A new book The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality explains where this theory comes from and why so many White voters are feeling class and racial resentment. Plus we dive into the immigration debate and why good numbers are hard to find.

Today we hear a lot about "blue collar" voters, but it wasn't always the case that the working class mattered. In this week's show, we look at why working class neighborhoods tend to get the short end of the stick, how a British monarch leveraged the working class to extend her reign, and who is responsible for the origin of the census.

After one year in office, can we pass judgement on Trump's presidency? We talk to two experts from the University of Virginia's Miller Center who have made presidential first years their speciality. Plus, we dive deep into presidential history and ask the tough questions about America's founding fathers -- like how did these guys live so long?

Until recently, Caroline Shaw was uncomfortable calling herself a composer–violin, singer, musician, sure. But not a composer. Then in 2013, her composition Partita for 8 Voices made her the youngest recipient ever of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Now she’s one of the most respected composers on the New Music scene and has been heralded as the future of music. Today, Shaw’s compositions range from traditional quartets and solo piano pieces to a cappella and collaborations with Kanye West.