Seizing Freedom

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, but African Americans knew the “freedom” of emancipation was incomplete without universal citizenship and rights protected by law. Learn how their insistence on having a full stake in American freedom helped transform federal policy and codify the rhetoric of “liberty” into law.

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Kidada speaks with Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic who covers race, politics and justice, about the role of the Black press in America, both historically and in the present.

They look at how conspiracy theories, misinformation and slander have been used as a form of media propaganda since the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, and how pioneering journalists like Ida B. Wells-Barnett laid the groundwork for identifying and calling out these campaigns.

Additionally, they discuss the evolution of legacy media outlets over time to include more diverse voices, and what it means to tell the truth objectively when reporting on American history as a Black journalist.

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Episode Artwork by Lyne Lucien. Transcripts, resources and more available at seizingfreedom.com.

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This episode of Seizing Freedom is supported by Home. Made., a podcast that explores the meaning of home and what it can teach us about ourselves and each other. Listen to episodes of Home. Made. at https://link.chtbl.com/homemade?sid=podcast.seizingfreedom

Coming February 1, 2022.

The promises of Reconstruction were left unfulfilled. The violent system of Jim Crow was being built in real time, brick by brick. And Black people had vibrant debates about how to make a way out of no way; about the best strategy for life after emancipation and Reconstruction; to continue to achieve their ancestors’ dreams.

Voice actors will use letters, diaries, newspapers, and autobiographies to bring you stories from luminaries like Ida B. Wells-Barnett and W.E.B. DuBois, as well as everyday freedom fighters forging their own paths forward.

Dr. Kidada Williams' interviews with artists, activists, thinkers and historians will bring the themes of these stories to the present day and give us visions for free Black futures.

Seizing Freedom is a production of VPM and Molten Heart. For more info about the series, visit seizingfreedom.com.

A discussion of the central role African Americans played in securing constitutional change for their civil and political rights during Reconstruction, as well as the long-lasting impacts of their efforts in the first civil rights movement.

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Conversation about family histories and education, how many of the stereotypes that have been associated with Black people in the United States came to be, why they’re simply not true, and what the pursuit of knowledge meant and looked like to African Americans during and after Reconstruction.

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