There's something so human about live theatre. Real people are telling a story in a shared space, while you share space with other people watching. It’s intimate. For playwright Gabriel Diego Hernández, it’s also a way to tell truths about, and poke fun at, race in the United States.

His play “Quarter Rican” explores his worldview as a mixed-race Puerto Rican man and father. In this episode, we talk about the power of the stage to be its own brand of protest, which includes talking about representation. And since our host is a playwright too, they had a lot to say about how we tell stories on stage to make bigger points about the world we live in.

Learn more about New Jersey hip hop artist, actor, poet, educator, and playwright Gabriel Diego Hernández on Instagram: @gabriel_diego_hernandez

This season of Race Unwrapped is supported by the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, and by our listeners. Click here to help make this work possible!

There’s nothing like the right combination of music and lyrics to crystalize a moment... or a movement. It’s why we’re asking every guest this season their favorite protest songs: everyone has an answer to that question, because we all instinctively understand music’s power. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Chelsey Green, musician, educator, and the first Black woman to chair the Board of Trustees for The Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammy Awards. She helps us unwrap why music, and representation in music, is such a big part of the quest for justice.

Learn more about Dr. Chelsey Green’s work at chelseygreen.com.

And if our conversation inspires you, let us know what your favorite protest song is at raceunwrapped@lpm.org. We’re making a playlist, and it’s already gooood, y’all.

This season of Race Unwrapped is supported by the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, and by our listeners. Click here to help make this work possible!

Most people know her as a political juggernaut. She’s a former minority leader of the Georgia state House, whose coalition building in that state became a blueprint for campaigns across the country. But Stacey Abrams is also a New York Times bestselling author, and NOT just of political nonfiction. Her series of legal thrillers follows protagonist Avery Keene through the inner workings of the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond. And while you’re turning the pages well into the night, you may also start thinking in new ways about democracy and justice. Abrams joins host Michelle Tyrene Johnson to kick off our fifth season, which is all about art as protest.

Learn more about Stacey Abrams’ work at staceyabrams.com

This season of Race Unwrapped is supported by the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, and by our listeners. Click here to help make this work possible!

Race Unwrapped returns on June 3, with a season about art as an agent of social change. Over ten episodes, host Michelle Tyrene Johnson will speak with artists of color from many disciplines. Music, movement, literature, poetry, television and more. They’ll talk about how they use their art to foster social change, and how their art form has historically played a role in resistance and revolution. A new episode drops every Wednesday, from Louisville Public Media.

Support for this season of Race Unwrapped comes from the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.

The winter holidays are sneaking up on us again, and this year, more of you joined us on Race Unwrapped than ever before! To celebrate, and to thank you, we hope you don't mind a regift. We're resharing our holiday music special to bump it to the top of your podcast feed. We hope it brings you joy, and we thank you deeply for being a part of our podcast family!

Production was well underway on this season of Race Unwrapped when America experienced what our guest just calls “The Switch.” President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, and suddenly we were witnessing a history-making presidential run by Vice President Kamala Harris. So we reached out to Emerge, a national organization dedicated to recruiting, training, and empowering Democratic women to run for office. And as it turns out, Harris herself is a main character in Emerge’s origin story. While they didn’t formally train her, helping Harris with her first-ever campaign inspired Emerge’s cofounders to create the organization. A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, joins us for this special bonus episode, to unwrap the challenges and rewards of being a Black woman running for office.

Back in the day, Jesse Jackson told us to keep hope alive. And when Barack Obama first ran for president, his image became almost synonymous with hope (maybe you still have one of the posters). We’ve spent this season learning about all the obstacles standing between Black people and the ballot box. But hope IS alive. A 2022 poll by the African American Research Collaborative found Black Americans are actually some of the most hopeful about democracy, while white Americans are the least. Dr. Andrene Wright from the University of Wisconsin-Madison helps us unpack the data and what’s behind it. And Dr. Andra Gillespie from Emory University joins us to talk about a group that gets a lot of attention around Election Day, but little respect the rest of the time: Black women voters.