The Black barbershop is a cultural institution. It's a place where you can get much more than a haircut. You get community. You get jokes. You might get politicized. And you will get the straight talk that we often hold back when navigating a larger public that's committed to white supremacist systems. In May 2022, Jay sat down with Quincy Mills to help us understand both the politics and economics of Black barber shops. Quincy is an associate professor of history at the University of Maine and ...
Jun 24, 2025•46 min
Dikemba Mutombo’s iconic finger wag on the court let his opponents know they weren’t getting past him. Off the court, his actions let the world know he wasn’t about to let poverty or racism score either._____________2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $1...
Jun 23, 2025•3 min
Questions about Black people’s place in the world have been rocket fuel for some of the most fiery debates in history. And three of those debates still have Black people heated today._____________2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every...
Jun 22, 2025•3 min
Nat Love, better known as Deadwood Dick, was a cattle herder and, if you heard him tell it, one of the most famous cowboys of the Old West. Was he just a legend in his own mind?_____________2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dolla...
Jun 21, 2025•3 min
Education has always mattered to Black people. Our enslaved ancestors risked their lives to learn what white oppressors withheld. Because those oppressors understood the important role knowledge of ones history, one's world, and oneself plays in Black liberation. Hundreds of years have gone by, and throughout them all, white supremacy has continued the work of suppressing Black education. So what can we do about it? In November 2021, Jay sat down with Dr. Ivory Toldosn. Dr. Toldson is the NAACP'...
Jun 17, 2025•48 min
The crowd erupted into joy at the words of the white man. They were free, he said. But their joy would be short-lived. A beast like slavery wasn’t about to go out with mere words. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every d...
Jun 16, 2025•3 min
Has someone ever corrected you for ‘axing’ instead of ‘asking’? Well, history shows that both are right. Here’s why we should keep speaking like we do. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dollar makes a difference. If...
Jun 15, 2025•3 min
Alice Walker is a renowned author. She’s also a grave hunter. In the 1970s, she set out to discover the final resting place of a long lost voice of authentic Blackness. What she found changed history forever. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people do...
Jun 14, 2025•3 min
Juneteenth is a special holiday for Black people - it commemorates when the last of our enslaved ancestors were freed. And yet, many Black people remain in bondage through a new form of slavery that's just as insidious: mass incarceration. On this special episode of BHY, we sit down with Ebony Underwood, social entrepreneur and founder of We Got Us Now, to discuss the significance of Juneteenth and the ongoing struggle for liberation. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices v...
Jun 10, 2025•37 min
To the North lay freedom, or so many believed. Starvation, exposure to the elements, and especially the threat of recapture still hung heavy over the heads of those who had escaped bondage. But what about escaping even further south? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistory...
Jun 09, 2025•3 min
Bass filling our ears, bodies dancing to new sounds. Words clipped from the documents that oppressed us, making them our own. The broken patterns of soft, colorful fabric. Our culture is synonymous with experimental creativity. Here are three examples of how. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your con...
Jun 08, 2025•3 min
Beyond being the once-key ingredient in soda, the kola nut has a long history with our people that goes deeper than any sugary drink. It’s a symbol of peace, prayer, and justice. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every do...
Jun 07, 2025•3 min
This isn’t a film podcast. But with the feature film Sinners now available at home, we couldn’t help but unpack its bold take on Southern horror, the moral weight of unspoken histories, and what it means—for the culture—to set a story like this in Mississippi. In this special episode of Black History Year, Grammy-winning blues musician and actor Chris Thomas King returns, joining scholar, writer, and BHY producer Dr. Leslie Grover to discuss what the film gets right, what it gets wrong, and the ...
Jun 03, 2025•1 hr 2 min
The scientist couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Every other sample of cells he’d seen died quickly in his lab, but these cells, from a poor Black woman, doubled every 24 hours! He had to get more of them – at any cost. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — m...
May 30, 2025•4 min
Our people love us some Aretha Franklin. We've been two-stepping to her greatest hits for generations. She was our beloved "Queen of Soul." So why the hell was the FBI surveilling her for years? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a mon...
May 29, 2025•3 min
Sweat drenched her face. She was having a baby at home and there was only a five-year-old girl to help her. While she writhed in pain, the girl held her hand and got to work – somehow this child knew EXACTLY what to do! _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — mos...
May 28, 2025•3 min
Instead of respecting boundaries, white archeologists pillaged our ancestral graves. As they dug through centuries of history, they found countless jars and bottles – which they dismissed as trash. Little did they know, these jars and bottles represent something crucial to our spirits. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make Pus...
May 27, 2025•3 min
They were the perfect weapon against racism, but it was dangerous. If they got caught, they would lose their jobs – or perhaps their lives. This secret group fought for our rights, and we never even knew they existed! Who were they? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryY...
May 26, 2025•3 min
From grandma’s mac & cheese to community gardens and collard green ramen, this episode celebrates the flavor, history, and rebellion baked into every bite of Black food. Featuring kitchen lore, spice rack debates, and dishes that double as survival stories, PushBlack's own food journalist Briona Lamback, writer and chef Alyssa Guzick, and farmer Yahudith Morgan join Dee for a family-style dinner to shoot the breeze about the food legacy that nourishes our people. — This podcast is brought to...
May 20, 2025•1 hr 28 min
Cascading waterfalls call the lush trees surrounding Rio de Janeiro’s most important rainforest home. But the woodland wouldn’t be the paradise it is today without the lifesaving seedlings our people planted. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people do...
May 19, 2025•4 min
Lincoln Heights was full of hard-working Black people. The town’s history dates back to the 1920s when Black Southerners migrated to the Northern California town because they were promised something crucial. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people don...
May 18, 2025•3 min
The Louisville Western Branch Library was the first public library created for us and operated by our people. It was the result of residents banding together to call for an education space of our own. _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10...
May 17, 2025•3 min
If you loved Sinners, you'll wanna tune in. This week on Black History Year, we're asking, "What happens when a whole town decides the map no longer defines them—and then proves it?" On this special crossover episode with the film-fanatics at The Micheaux Mission, host Darren is cracking open the must-see Afro-Brazilian thriller "Bacurau" (2019). Part Western, part sci-fi, part anti-colonial manifesto (YES, that), they explore how collective audacity can turn survival into revolution—and why thi...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 10Ep. 10
This week, we’re stepping into sacred but complicated terrain: Black cultural icons and the legacies they leave behind. Culture writer Shamira Ibrahim joins us to unpack how we talk about their harms, who gets held accountable, and what we lose when we flatten people into either heroes or villains.From R. Kelly to Beyoncé, Sister Souljah to Jonathan Majors, we trace a spectrum of behavior, impact, and influence across pivotal moments in Black culture—and ask: how do we protect our people and dem...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 10Ep. 11
Anti-Blackness wants us to think time travel is impossible. But is it? What if there WAS a way to go back? Anti-Blackness tried erasing us. What if we were able to find a way to erase it? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but...
May 12, 2025•4 min
Jamaican Black castor oil is packed with nutrients that help hair and skin flourish. But m _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dollar makes a difference. If this episode moved you, share it with your people! Thanks fo...
May 11, 2025•3 min
Build the life of your dreams and learn from the world’s most successful people. Emma Grede, one of America’s richest self-made women - wants you to make the most of your life. On ‘Aspire with Emma Grede', learn through thought-provoking conversations with some of the most successful and smartest minds on the planet. Each episode will unpack their habits, philosophy and strategies, covering career advice, well-being, psychology and of course how to win in business. The show offers personal stori...
May 09, 2025•3 min
This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on morality—and asking who it really serves. Author and theologian Terry Stokes joins us to unpack the myths that shape Black moral life. From the myth of sin to the illusion of the state, Terry traces how capitalism, Christianity, and respectability politics have all tried to define what’s right for us—and what happens when we refuse. To learn more, check out Terry’s book, "Jesus and the Abolitionists: How Anarchist Christianity Empowers the People." — ...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 10Ep. 9
This week, we’re pulling back the curtain on American music history—and asking who really gets to define it. Grammy-winning Blues musician and cultural historian Chris Thomas King drops in to break down why everything we’ve been taught about the origins of the blues is wrong. Because Chris is letting it be known: it didn't start on Mississippi plantations—he's taking us to Congo Square, Creole New Orleans, and Storyville, where he argues the blues was born out of resistance, freedom, and Saturda...
Apr 23, 2025•57 min•Season 10Ep. 8
In public, Martin Luther King Jr. was staunchly against firearms as a means of liberation. Privately, he owned weapons and hired armed security to protect himself and his family. Why the change? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a mon...
Apr 21, 2025•3 min
