The Heist

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Episodes

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The Heist

Nate Bradford, Jr. and other Black farmers and ranchers are fighting to preserve a type of rural, Black agricultural life. But the past keeps blocking their future. From The Center for Public Integrity and Pushkin Industries it’s the third season of the award winning podcast The Heist. This year, we follow Bradford’s fight to survive against the long, documented history of government discrimination against Black farmers. New episodes dropping every Tuesday in October 2023.

Episodes

The Fight for Debt Relief and Legacy

When the initial debt relief program for Black farmers was passed in 2021 it was a false start. It was challenged in court and stalled. But, in 2022, a new debt relief program, not based on race, was passed to replace it. How will the new program work? How would it affect Black farmers and ranchers, including Nate? And what kind of future do Nate and his family imagine? An expert gives context to why Black farmers need debt relief; and Nate’s sons talk about what it means to carry on the Bradfor...

Oct 31, 2023•34 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast

The Forever Fight

Pigford v. Glickman (1999) was a class action lawsuit accusing the USDA of long-running racial discrimination against Black farmers in regard to the types of loans and assistance they received (if they received anything at all). This episode will cover that crucial case—a case that led April to pursue this story overall—showing its complications and the ways it drags on today.

Oct 24, 2023•41 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast

Boley was a Rip-Roaring Place, Honey

So far, we’ve been following Nate’s journey to becoming a full-time rancher…but Nate isn’t just concerned about his achievements, he also wants Boley to thrive. That mindset is essential because Boley and the ranches that surround it are interdependent. With that in mind, we’ll look at the history of Boley’ (and what it was like when it was flourishing) and how some of the same forces that have made it hard for Nate to do well as a rancher have affected the town itself.

Oct 17, 2023•37 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast

Dancing with the Devil

Nate says his relationship with the USDA was rocky from the start and he went in knowing he was “dancing with the devil” because of his father’s experiences with the agency. In this episode, we’ll go through Nate’s experiences with the agency and why he thinks ultimately he was just being pushed out of the system. We’ll also explore the systemic nature of the USDA’s discrimination against Black farmers, and Public Integrity’s efforts to get the agency’s loan data.

Oct 10, 2023•40 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast

The Cowboy Way and The Color Line

Surviving as a rancher is hard for lots of reasons: land has gotten more expensive, corporate farms have gotten more powerful and put pressure on small ranches to expand their operations to stay in business, inflation has driven up the prices of feed and supplies… But for Nate, and for Black ranchers and farmers across the country, ranching is also hard because the USDA, the government agency that they’re supposed to be able to turn to for support, instead makes it hard for them to get that supp...

Oct 03, 2023•31 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast

Introducing season 3 of The Heist: Land of Broken Promises

Nate Bradford, Jr. and other Black farmers and ranchers are fighting to preserve a type of rural, Black agricultural life. But the past keeps blocking their future. From The Center for Public Integrity and Pushkin Industries, follow Bradford's fight to survive against the long, documented history of government discrimination against Black farmers.

Sep 19, 2023•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast

Carrying the load

ReShonda finds a potential home for her bank and a kindred spirit. And she faces new challenges.

Mar 22, 2022•23 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast

The wealth-gap machine

How did the wealth gap become so huge? And what will it take to really fix it? As ReShonda digs into an aspect of the country's discriminatory history that intersects with her life in a deeply personal way, a key wealth-gap researcher tackles those questions.

Mar 15, 2022•31 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast

Shifting goalposts

It's a lot harder to find investors for a new bank than people willing to open accounts there. ReShonda discovers a group that might be interested in helping fund her Bank of Jabez.

Mar 07, 2022•26 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast

Popcorn Heaven

ReShonda builds a popcorn business with a too-small loan, learning something that leaves her reeling. She joins a lawsuit that will have national ripple effects.

Mar 01, 2022•32 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast

How Do You Catch Up?

As ReShonda Young bought real estate and started a business in Waterloo, Iowa, she could see the impact of past and present discriminatory practices. But working at a small investment firm is what really opened her eyes to a big consequence: the wealth gap between white and Black residents. It’s an entrenched national problem. She wanted to help address it in her hometown. So she decided to start a Black-owned bank that would make that goal its mission. But how do you get the money to launch a b...

Feb 22, 2022•30 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast

Introducing season 2 of The Heist from The Center for Public Integrity

Season 2 of our award-winning podcast The Heist is the story of an enduring American injustice and one woman's effort to address it in her hometown.

Feb 02, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast

The Virus

Our final episode of the season. The coronavirus has hit, and America is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Congress and the Trump administration rush to roll out the Paycheck Protection Program. The PPP was supposed to help small businesses and their workers. But with the system rigged to favor the rich, things quickly go wrong.

Oct 15, 2020•32 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast

Better Off?

What did companies do with their huge tax break? The Trump administration made grand promises about the 2017 tax law — that corporations would invest the windfall in their workers, boosting the entire economy. So, are we better off? We look at the case of American Airlines, which is now furloughing thousands of workers in the middle of the pandemic.

Oct 08, 2020•31 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast

Buyer's Remorse

Republicans say they hate debt. So why did they push for a tax bill that would add almost two trillion dollars to the country’s tab? Only one Republican senator broke ranks - until he didn’t. This episode tells the story of the flip-flops, backroom deals and magical thinking that led to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Oct 01, 2020•43 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast

Mnuchin’s World

Who is Steven Mnuchin? He somehow manages to fly under the radar, but as Treasury Secretary he has tremendous power. How did a man with no record of public service and the nickname “the “Foreclosure King” become the guy in charge of America’s money? The answer? This is how power works in Trump’s America.

Sep 24, 2020•36 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast

The Dallas Piggy Bank

In 2017, rich Republican donors demanded a legislative victory, and this is how they got it. We meet one big donor from Dallas who goes on the record to explain how money and power work in Trump’s America. This is the behind-the-scenes story of how political pressure led to the 2017 tax bill, a huge giveaway to the wealthy.

Sep 17, 2020•31 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast

Welcome to The Heist

Welcome to the Heist: How did massive amounts of government money end up in the pockets of corporations and rich Americans during Trump’s presidency? We go inside the system to find out. Episodes drop weekly starting September 17, 2020.

Sep 01, 2020•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast