BBC Radio 4 LW

America in Black and White

America in Black and White: Segregation

Documentaries

Factual

16/02/2016

Segregation

BBC Radio 4 - America in Black and White, Segregation

Rajini Vaidyanathan examines segregation in the United States.

Rajini Vaidyanathan continues her examination of the debate about race in the United States. In this second episode she looks at segregation.

The famous 'Brown versus the Board of Education' legal case and the civil rights movement were supposed to have brought Americans together, but in Kansas City Rajini sees for herself the much more complicated legacy of desegregation. On the one hand, splintering solidarity in the black community; on the other, a city where white and black Americans still live quite separate lives.

Demographers suggest America is becoming less segregated, but in Atlanta, one of the big southern cities supposedly driving the desegregation, she finds the reality doesn't quite match the statistics. Catching up with a family featured throughout the series, she finds estate agents steering black families away from white neighbourhoods. She discusses that with Julian Castro, the US Housing Secretary, and hears about his new rules to get communities integrating.

In Connecticut she visits a community which has spent 20 years trying to integrate its schools, without requiring it of anyone.

Producer: Giles Edwards.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Rajini Vaidyanathan examines some of the underlying issues that America has with race.

Rajini Vaidyanathan examines some of the deep, underlying structural issues that America still has with race.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

America in Black and White

Segregation

Genres

Formats

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4