The series opens by traveling to the 1920s to hear how Black Americans fought for space on radio airwaves. Then, we hear about programs in the 1940s that dramatized issues and concerns in the Black community.

In this interview, Elizabeth Hinton sketches the relationship between the civil rights movement, urban uprisings and the beginning of the “War on Crime,” with a focus on the Harlem Riot of 1964, and the1 965 Watts Rebellion, which was triggered by police brutality and became a key law-and-order talking point. She then moves through a range of problems within the Black Power movement, focusing on overlooked experiences in the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement in Detroit and Huey Newton’s later reflections on the Black Panthers. She also focuses attention on the FBI Counter Intelligence Program or COINTELPRO, and its role in breaking down Black Power organizations by spreading fear and conflicts inside and between them, as for example in the conflict between the Panthers and United Slaves Organization, or US. In this interview, Hinton starts off by telling us about the Harlem Riot of 1964, which was a key starting point for other waves of disruption throughout the 1960s, including the Watts Rebellion. She continues to research the linkages between state counterinsurgency programs and the maintenance of mass incarceration. Hinton released her celebrated history, “From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime,” two years ago. You can hear her in-depth talk about this book in Kite Line episodes 63 and 64.

The great civil rights struggles of the mid-twentieth century, with their emphasis on non-violent political action, depended crucially on press coverage to gain impact -- and, ultimately, success. But their stories may have gone untold were it not for newspapers like the Chicago Defender and other organs of the black press. They broke the stories that the white mainstream media picked up and disseminated to a wider audience. Yet few in that wider audience even knew of the existence of the black press.

Perhaps no reporter was more important Ethel Payne. Dubbed “the First Lady of the black press,” she told the world about a young leader emerging out of the civil rights movement in Atlanta named Martin Luther King, Jr. She told the story of Emmet Till’s mother, who had to view the badly mutilated body of her 14 year old son after the brutal beating that took his life. She hammered a nail into the coffin of McCarthyism when she reported on the persecution of a lowly African-American Pentagon employee absurdly accused on being a Communist spy.

The first African American woman to be part of the Washington Press Corps, she courageously buttonholed presidents with searching questions about racial prejudice and civil rights. Unlike many of her colleagues then and now, she was no mere stenographer but held the powerful to account for their policies and views.

Yet few Americans have ever heard of Ethel Payne, much less understood the giant role she played in reporting the story -- and advancing the agenda -- of civil rights in America. Now, a terrific biography of Payne has just come out from Harper Collins, written by my guest this hour, James McGrath Morris.  Through Payne’s riveting personal story, he takes the reader on an inspiring journey through the civil rights movement -- and a greater understanding of issues that continue to resonate strongly today. The book is “Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press.”

In addition to Eye on the Struggle, James McGrath Morris is the author of the acclaimed biography Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power and two other books.

Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, 1619 to 2000 “Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, 1619 to 2000” is a book in part written by Francis Adams, an independent scholar living in Los Angeles, California. The book posits that the drive for equal rights for black people in the United States has never had the support of the majority of America. Rather, racial progress has been made in brief historic bursts, lead by the committed militant minorities of abolitionists, radical republicans, and civil rights activists. In this program, we visit with Dr. Francis D. Adams. I asked him to explain the importance of the trial of James Somerset that took place in England in 1772. Dr. Francis Adams recommends “Collapse,” by Jared Diamond. Originally Broadcast: January 29, 2005