Created Equal

We share highlights from this week's "Created Equal" episodes, including reparations for Black Detroiters, white rage in America and more.

Detroit historian and author Ken Coleman joins "Created Equal" to discuss what local efforts are being made in Detroit on reparations for Black residents. Plus, it's the first episode featuring caller feedback.

Stephen Henderson revisits a conversation with Carol Anderson, the author of the New York Times bestseller, "White Rage: The unspoken truth of our nation’s divide."

Many cities across the U.S. are exploring the idea of reparations, and Detroit is one of them. The city created the Detroit Reparations Task Force in February 2023 to better address historical discrimination and harm done against Black Detroiters. In this episode of "Created Equal," host Stephen Henderson was joined by two steering committee members of The African American Redress Network — an organization that provides reparations education and advocacy on the local level — to discuss what reparations might look like in Detroit.

On the inaugural episode of "Created Equal," host Stephen Henderson sat down with Jamon Jordan, Detroit’s official historian, and Desiree Cooper, a writer and activist, whose work helps explain the impacts of inequality — both locally and nationally. 

Psychologist and author of “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?” Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum discusses her groundbreaking 1997 book with Henderson in the context of this moment of cultural and racial reckoning. They talk about how young people internalize race, systemic racism through suburban communities and the importance of cross racial friendships.

Award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa talks about immigrating to America, growing up in Chicago, and the process of writing about past trauma.

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. is chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of the new book “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.” He and Stephen Henderson discuss “the efficiency of American exceptionalism as an ideology.”

Award-winning poet and activist Caroline Randall Williams talks with Stephen Henderson about her work and what gives her hope during this dark time in American history.

Writing Professor and Author Jerald Walker discusses his poignant collection of essays called “How To Make A Slave," which is a finalist for a National Book Award. In the book, Walker reflects on growing up on Chicago's Southside, what it means to depict Black American life with authenticity and what he hopes to teach his children about the complex joy of the African-American experience.

JM Holmes, author of the collection of short stories How Are You Going to Save Yourself, talks with Stephen Henderson about the roles of race and gender in his writing.

NPR’s first full-time TV critic, Eric Deggans, joins Stephen Henderson to discuss how prejudice, racism and sexism fuels some elements of modern media.

Stephen Henderson and Harriet Washington, winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction discuss environmental racism and her book, A Terrible Thing to Waste.

Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, author of America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America discusses what it means to be a white ally in 2020 with Stephen Henderson.

Stephen Henderson talks with Sarah M. Broom, author of The Yellow House, and discusses the roles of ritual and home for African Americans as told in her New York Times best-selling book which won the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Stephen Henderson speaks with Dr. Carol Anderson, author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, a New York Times Bestseller that was chosen as a New York Times Editor's Pick for July 2016.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead talks with Stephen Henderson about his novel The Nickel Boys and the influence of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man on his explorations of race in America.

Pulitzer Prize winning commentator Stephen Henderson’s conversation with 2016 National Book Award-winner Ibram X. Kendi about his book How to Be An Antiracist, a New York Times #1 Best Seller in 2020.

Hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stephen Henderson, Season 3 of the podcast Created Equal explores “Writers on Race, from Ralph Ellison to Colson Whitehead,” and features some of the most important voices in literature as well as the national conversation on racial inequities. Recorded throughout the pandemic and civil unrest of 2020. Each episode consists of a conversation between Henderson and one writer exploring the role of their work in the conversation about race in America.

Stephen Henderson is joined by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha and State Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich of Flint (p. 194) at a live event at the Detroit Public Library. They share their personal stories during the Flint Water Crisis and discuss the challenges and obstacles that still exist in Flint.