In the Margins

Black-owned banks were going to close the racial wealth gap—so what happened? Harini Bhat dives into the history books to explore the financial struggles faced by Black Americans from segregation to redlining and examines the role Black banks have played in the economic empowerment of the communities they serve.

In 1909, the North Pole was at the center of a heated controversy: Who had made it there first, Robert Peary or Frederick Cook? But overlooked in the debate was a third explorer, a Black man named Matthew Henson.

In The Margins is a series that covers the history they didn’t teach in school, exploring obscure, yet captivating tales that offer unique insights into their time and place.

In 1870, 50 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified, thousands of Utah women voted under equal suffrage law, a first in the nation. Leaders of the women’s suffrage movement hoped that Utah would blaze a path for the women’s suffrage and liberation. But the plan completely backfired and Utah women's vote was taken away just 17 years after it was granted.

How did the Tuskegee VA Hospital spark the fury of the KKK? To provide more equitable care to Black Veterans returning from WWI, the first and only Black VA Hospital was established, but it opened with an all-white staff. This is the story of the hard-won battle to ensure an all-Black healthcare staff would serve America’s Black Veterans.

In 1923, the Supreme Court revoked an Indian man’s citizenship which would go on to have devastating consequences for other Indian immigrants as well. The reason? He wasn’t white. What does this case, United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, tell us about the larger history of race, white supremacy, and citizenship in America?

Salt Lake City’s Japantown was once a thriving community for thousands of Japanese Americans. In 1966 city officials destroyed it for a glitzy new sports arena, one justified by an Olympic bid that ended in failure. Here’s how the controversial practice of “urban renewal” nearly wiped out Japantown and how the Japanese American community is fighting to protect what remains.

So many towns across America created for and by Black Americans have vanished, but a few survive. How did Hobson City, Alabama—a small, rural town—survive 125 years and become a notable stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit? This episode explores one town's fight for independence from Jim Crow to today.

The story of Rebecca Cox Jackson and Rebecca Perot, two free Black women in the 19th century who were partners in life and upended the religious establishment to create their own spiritual Shaker community.