Episode 3: A Home and a Country

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Black bodies have always been on the line in America, whether on the auction block or in a parking lot in Minneapolis. American law has enshrined the state’s ability to enact violence with almost total impunity. And, going back to as far as the Colonial Marines in 1808, reclaiming one’s body from this system has required fearless acts of rebellion. In this episode, Carvell and Jeffery trace the evolution of slave patrols into modern policing, exploring the consequences of that origin story with activist and lead of Black Visions Collective Miski Noor and Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, an historian of Black resistance and rebellion in the US. Collectively, they make the case that protest is vital to American progress and racial justice — and that we must keep taking to the streets.

The third verse of The Star-Spangled Banner was performed and arranged by Sandra Lawson-Ndu.

Additional Resources:

• Black Visions Collective

• Hadden, Sally E. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.

• Carter Jackson, Kellie. Force And Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.

• Leepson, Marc. Francis Scott Key: A Life. From What So Proudly We Hailed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2014.

• Lineberry, Cate. “The Story Behind the Star Spangled Banner,” Smithsonian.com, March 1, 2007.

• McWhirter, Cameron. Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 2011.

• Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2019.

• North, Anna. “How Racist Policing Took Over American Cities, Explained By A Historian.” Vox.com. June 6, 2020.

• Ward, Geoff. “Living Histories of White Supremacist Policing: Towards Transformative Justice.” Du Bois Review, Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2018

• Wells-Barnett, Ida B. The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States. 1895

• Wilson, Christopher. “Where’s the Debate on Francis Scott Key’s Slave-Holding Legacy?,” Smithsonian.com, July 1, 2016

• US Constitution, Article 4: Section 2. Signed in convention September 17, 1787. Ratified June 21, 1788. (A portion of Article IV, Section 2, was changed by the 13th Amendment)