Reveal

One of the unmistakable throughlines of the second Trump administration is how it’s overhauling policies that directly affect African Americans, most notably by targeting programs and initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. 
For journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, it’s an attempt to take the country back to an era before the civil rights movement. “A lot of folks are saying, you know, that this administration is rolling back the ’60s, but I’m like, he—this administration’s actually going back further than that.” 
The administration is also removing references to Black history from the nation’s museums, parks, and schools. When history itself is being erased at the highest levels, who’s left to tell us where we’ve been and where we’re headed? 
This week on Reveal, as part of Black History Month, we’re bringing you conversations from our sister podcast, More To The Story, with three prominent Black writers who are fighting to tell a more inclusive American story.

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More To The Story: Sixteen years ago this month, the radio show State of the Re:Union, created by Al Letson, produced an award-winning episode looking at civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. The episode was called “Who Is This Man?” because while Rustin was not well known, his work supported the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Rustin was a man with a number of seemingly incompatible labels: Black, gay, Quaker—identifications that served to earn him as many detractors as admirers. Although he had numerous passions and pursuits, his most transformative act, one that certainly changed the course of American history, was to counsel MLK on the use of nonviolent resistance. Rustin also helped engineer the 1963 March on Washington and frame the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott.  
This week on More To The Story, we bring you an important piece for Black History Month, a reflection on Rustin.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
Read: Can He Really Do That? Black History Month in the Age of Trump (Mother Jones)
Listen: Nikole Hannah-Jones: Trump Is Erasing Black History (More To The Story)

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Cecelia Lizotte owns Suya Joint, a celebrated Nigerian restaurant in Boston. She’s a rising star in the city who was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2024 and operates two restaurants and a food truck. But last year, a key employee—who happens to be her brother—was detained by ICE. 
“I'm not able to operate the establishment, basically,” Lizotte said. “It's just, it's crazy.”
Lizotte’s experience got us wondering what it's like to run a restaurant, or any business, when a key employee suddenly disappears. 
This week on Reveal, producer Katie Mingle and reporter Julia Lurie tell stories about the people swept up in President Donald Trump’s mass deportations and the families that are left behind. We also talk to LA Taco reporter Memo Torres about how immigration raids continue across Los Angeles almost daily, even though the national spotlight moved on months ago. 
The first two stories are updates from an episode that originally aired in September 2025. 

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More To The Story: During the 2024 presidential campaign, a conservative playbook emerged. Created by the Heritage Foundation, this 900-plus-page document was a roadmap written for a future conservative president. And while some Republicans tried to distance themselves from Project 2025, the authors and the concepts they wrote about have been embraced by President Donald Trump.

Our guest on More To The Story this week is journalist David A. Graham, who did a deep dive into the concepts of Project 2025 for his book, The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America. He talks with host Al Letson about what’s already been implemented—like mass deportations, the replacement of federal workers with Trump loyalists, and the elimination of DEI initiatives—and what other policies might be coming. 

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
Listen: The EEOC’s Identity Crisis (Reveal)
Read: The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America (Penguin Random House)
Read: Project 2026: Trump’s Plan to Rig the Next Election (Mother Jones)

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In a Minnesota town outside the Twin Cities, Emily is a nurse who treats many immigrant patients. She can’t locate a patient who just had a test result that shows they might have cancer. The patient was recently detained by ICE; situations like these have forced the clinic to adapt, making house calls and triaging care.

“I'd love to know how well somebody's kidneys are functioning today,” Emily said, but “I'm gonna wait till three months because I don't want them to come in for a lab appointment that's not critical.”
Emily is one of many Minnesotans mounting a quiet, secretive resistance to the Trump administration's hard-nosed and often violent immigration agenda. Across the state, neighbors are helping neighbors and communities are building grassroot systems to support immigrant families. 
This week on Reveal, our Minnesotan reporters Nate Halverson and Artis Curiskis report on how Minnesota is teaching the country to resist federal agents who have arrested children, killed citizens in the street, and pepper-sprayed high schoolers.

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