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THE WEEKLY REVEAL
Saturday, July 4, 2026
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Why America at 250 Still Cannot Face Slavery
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Courtesy Equal Justice Initiative
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When Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1980s, the city—one of America’s most prominent slave trading spaces before the Civil War—had dozens of Confederate monuments and memorials, but nothing commemorating slavery.
Today, thanks to Stevenson’s efforts, the city looks much different.
Over the last decade, the executive director of the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative has transformed parts of Montgomery through markers acknowledging the legacy of slavery while building the Legacy Sites, a museum and memorials that commemorate the nation’s history of lynching, enslavement, and racial terror across the South.
“We have to now fight to correct the historic record, to have an honest accounting of what happened to our parents and grandparents and their parents,” Stevenson says. “Because without an honest accounting, we will not make it to the next step.”
This week on Reveal, host Al Letson travels to Montgomery to interview Stevenson as America marks its 250th anniversary. He talks about the importance of memorializing the nation’s darkest chapters as the Trump administration attempts to erase slavery from America’s museums and explains why he sees today’s narrative struggle for racial justice as a generational battle.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify, Overcast, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Space, “Star Trek,” and Social Justice
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Alan Dyer/VW Pics/UIG/Getty
Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s, a daughter and granddaughter of social justice activists, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein fell in love with math and the physical sciences and developed a profound curiosity about the cosmos (though the smoggy night sky of her childhood blocked her view of the stars). She soon developed a detailed plan for her life that led to a career writing and teaching about physics and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire.
Today, Prescod-Weinstein’s work stands out for the ways she weaves her identity as queer, Black, and Jewish into her work. In her latest book, The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie, Prescod-Weinstein brings a Black feminist lens to cosmology, quantum physics, poetry, and popular culture to help unlock the mysteries of the physical universe.
“The Edge of Space-Time is a much more intimate book because this is my brain,” Prescod-Weinstein says. “This is how I see the universe. These are the things that I am passionate about in my quiet moments.”
On this week’s More To The Story, Prescod-Weinstein talks about the need for diversity and inclusivity in the sciences and puts science fiction’s various hypotheses for space travel to the test with host Al Letson.
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Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
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We examine the famous quote from the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal,” and the 250-year struggle to live up to that statement—a perfect episode for Independence Day.
Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty
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Three reporters who love soccer dig into the World Cup. Why are tickets so expensive? Why is Gianni Infantino always on camera? And why wasn’t Haiti bound to win a game?
Photo Credit: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty
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The Reflecting Pool remodel. The gilded White House makeover. Turning America’s 250th birthday celebration into a MAGA rally. What’s Trump’s motivation for all these vanity projects?
The answer is simple: power.
Photo Credit: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Zuma
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If you’re a fan of Heather Cox Richardson’s hit newsletter, Letters from an American, then you’re in for a treat.
Richardson talks about the decades-long failure to hold corrupt American leaders accountable, the still-resonant death of Reconstruction, and what she sees as the tragic hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson.
Photo Credit: Erin Clark/The Boston Globe/Getty
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We revisit the dramatic rise and fall of FTX, the infamous cryptocurrency exchange, and its controversial founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. From his prison cell, the former crypto king recounts the final days of FTX and explains why he believes there’s more blame to go around.
Check it out on next week’s episode of Reveal.
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend. Have some thoughts? Drop us a line with feedback or ideas!
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