Sitara Nieves

Since 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been celebrated as a federal holiday. Yet, even from the start, the day was met with controversy: senators Jesse Helms and John McCain fought against the creation of the holiday, and more recently, some major figures —such as Cornel West — have started a campaign against what West called the “Santa-Claus-ification” of Dr. King. Harris Wofford also perceives Dr. King's message as becoming warped over the years, and now advocates for Americans to spending the holiday donating their service instead of just taking off of work.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, people across the country will honor the civil rights leader's memory and legacy in myriad ways. However, this is the first year when crowds seeking to give tribute can gather around the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in the National Mall. The 30-foot tall statue has been controversial because of the labor used to construct it and for its use of a paraphrased quote from Dr. King.

Wednesday marks the tenth anniversary of the United States opening a detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The past decade has seen no shortage of controversy about the base, both on legal and moral terms. Barack Obama campaigned for president on the promise to close the base, but signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act on December 31, which includes a provision allowing indefinite military detention without trial. There are currently 171 prisoners being held there, and no signs of shutting the facility down in the near future.

Sunday night marked the season finale of TLC's "All-American Muslim." The show followed five Muslim-American families in Dearborn, Michigan, and drew a lot of attention when retail chain Lowe’s decided to pull commercials from the program. Both the boycott and the show itself prompted a larger conversation about the portrayal of Muslims in the media, as well as many Americans' private prejudices.

December 10, 2010 marked the beginning of the Arab Spring, a series of pro-democracy movements that moved from Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and Libya. A little over a year later, violent protests are still happening on the streets of Cairo and Homs, Tunisia and Libya are peaceful, while Bahrain and Yemen remain ominously quiet. So where will 2012 take the Middle East and North Africa?

Louis CK is a veteran stand-up comedian who writes, stars, and frequently directs the cult FX series "Louie." Known among comedy connoisseurs for wittily playing with language and awkward social scenarios, his most recent venture has been to independently produce the feature-length concert film "Live at the Beacon Theatre." Distributed exclusively online, it has earned over one million dollars since its December 10 release. (Watch an outtake from the special after the jump.) Louis CK talks about his special, and gives his predictions for the coming year.

Iman Traina escaped from Libya in April, fleeing on a boat  with her baby as Moammar Gadhafi's forces moved on Misrata. When she was last on the program, she reported not having clean water, lack of food and electricity. After spending many months in Ireland, she is home again. Traina says things have gotten much better in Libya and looks and hopes to settle down, raise her children, and rebuild her country.

Some years just seem to have less impact than others. But 2011 held the Arab Spring, the death of Osama bin Laden, Occupy Wall Street, protests against austerity measures and the ousting of Berlusconi, as well as the end of the Iraq War. Which events of the past year will make it to the history textbooks, and which will be esoteric stories we confuse our grandkids with?

In September, artist and graphic designer Megan Flood came on The Takeaway to discuss her senior project at the University of Michigan. Through audio and photographs, Living Without Doorknobs documents life in an Ann Arbor, Michigan homeless tent community called Camp Take Notice. One of the homeless men living in Camp Take Notice, Joe Gill, was a major focus of Flood's work, and his photographs of the tent community became an integral part of her project.

Amit Gupta first appeared on The Takeaway in October, three weeks after being diagnosed with leukemia, to discuss his experiences trying to find a bone marrow donor. Amit is of South Indian descent, and South Indians are severely under-represented in the donor pool. His friend Seth Godin, who writes for the popular blog SethGodin.com, offered $10,000 to the first person to be a donor match with Amit.

What do Sony Pictures, A&W Restaurants, Saab, American Apparel, Sears, Kellogg's Corn Pops, MySpace, Soap Opera Digest, and Nokia have in common? They’re ten brands that 24/7 Wall St, a Delaware-based financial news group, says won’t survive through 2012. And it looks like some of those predictions might already be coming true — on Tuesday, Sears announced it will close more than 100 stores after lackluster holiday sales.

A devastating tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, on May 22 of this year. One hundred sixty people were killed, and nearly a thousand were injured. According to the National Weather Service, as much as 75 percent of the city was damaged. Three days later, Susan Moore and Regina Jones, two Joplin public school teachers, joined The Takeaway to discuss its effects on the city's schools, which were closed for the remainder of the school year. Scott Meeker, enterprise editor of the Joplin Globe, also came on the program to discuss his efforts to reconnect people over Facebook. The Takeaway speaks to them again for an update on Joplin many months after the storm.

Americans struggling with the ongoing recession and unemployment has been one of the defining narratives of 2011. Alexandra Jarrin, a regular guest and listener, lost her corporate job and home in 2008 and remained unemployed for nearly three years. She now works as a door-to-door salesperson for commission, but hopes to find a better job soon. Jarrin is 50-years-old and lives in Vermont. She has been on the program before, and gives an update of how her life has changed since The Takeaway last spoke to her.

The financial crisis has hit just about every corner of the economy but it has been disproportionately harmful to African-Americans. The unemployment rate among black Americans stands at 16 percent. That's nearly 7 percentage points higher than the unemployment rate of the population as a whole.

When Seth Godin, who writes a popular blog at sethgodin.com, learned that his friend and colleague Amit Gupta had leukemia, he quickly offered up a challenge to his readers: the first bone marrow donor match to Gupta who would donate stem cells would receive $10,000. Gupta, who is of South Indian descent, is a poor candidate for a bone marrow match in this country, where minorities in general — and South Indians specifically — are under-represented in the donor pool.

Elizabeth Warren announced her bid for the Massachusetts Senate seat currently occupied by Republican Scott Brown (and formerly by Democrat Edward Kennedy) just over two weeks ago. Since then, she's obtained widespread support from top Democrats and has created a moderately viral video.

Recently we spoke with David Kennedy about combating gang violence. Kennedy founded a project called Operation Ceasefire that helped reduce gang violence nationally. Today, we're speaking with a police officer who has also had success in reducing gang-related crime. Los Angeles police chief and former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton joins us to share his experiences. During his tenure heading the two largest police departments in the U.S., Bratton has presided over precipitous drops in crime.

Musician and poet K'Naan recently returned to his native Somalia, which is in the grip of a devastating famine and violent civil war. His last memories of the country were twenty years ago, when he fled with other members of his family for safety in Canada.

A suicide bomber in Afghanistan on Tuesday killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, former president of Afghanistan and leader of the High Peace Council. Rabbani was in the process of negotiating an end to the war with the Taliban. The assassination is a devastating blow to the Afghan peace process, and the future of security in the region.

Life changed for most Americans after 9/11, but comedians faced a very specific dilemma: when and how to make people laugh again. Comedic television programs like "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show" struggled with this question as they began their fall seasons in late September of 2001, and comedians like Gilbert Gottfried faced decisions on whether it was appropriate to joke about 9/11 when performing live.