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 Bradford legacy. We’ll likely circle back to Nate at the end.  ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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.  ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more