NPR Staff

The Freedom Singers, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez were some of the people who provided the soundtrack at the March on Washington. The Freedom Singers' Rutha Mae Harris tells host Michel M...

On this day in 1963, thousands of people converged on Washington D.C. to march for jobs and freedom. It was a special moment in the struggle for civil rights, one that ended with Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic 'I Have a Dream' speech. But also on that podium was John ...

Even though the March on Washington was nonviolent, many braced for riots. Host Michel Martin speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch about the story behind the march.

Education has long been referred to as a civil right in this country — including by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Nearly 50 years ago, King said:

"The richest nation on earth has never allocated enough resources to ...

Cee-Lo Green says the group's reunion provides an opportunity to bring something new and deep to hip-hop. Goodie Mob's new album, Age Against the Machine, aims to challenge the genre's mainstream powerhouses.

Last week, we decided to start a roundtable about the collisions of race and gender in digital spaces like Twitter and the blogosphere. The conversation was sparked by the snarky-yet-serious Twitter hashtag #solidarityisforwhitewomen, which became a trending topic. Hundreds of people tweeted about their frustrations with influential feminist bloggers ...

While some American lawmakers have urged increased involvement by the United States in the Syrian civil war, so far the Obama administration has been reluctant to intervene in a major way.

The question has taken on a new sense of urgency following an attack last week near the Syrian capital ...

Patina Miller first got noticed on the theater scene in 2009 as the star of Sister Act: A Divine Musical Comedy. She earned rave reviews for playing the accidental nun who led a choir to stardom. Now she's center stage again in the Broadway revival of Pippin, the musical first ...

The lush vocals and minimal orchestration of Julia Holter's music has graced albums dedicated to such high-minded concepts as Greek mythology and French New Wave films. Her latest release is no different, taking its narrative thrust from Gigi, the 1958 film musical about a teenage girl in turn-of-the-century ...

As Egypt plunges into unrest amid the military-backed government's crackdown on demonstrators, the country's Christian minority has been targeted by Islamic extremists.

Dozens of churches have been burned, ransacked and looted since the government began fighting against supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ousted President Mohammed Morsi two weeks ago.

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Each week, Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin brings listeners an unexpected side of the news by talking with someone personally affected by the stories making headlines.

Dr. David Casarett is the director of hospice care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He works with ...

In 2009, reporter Christian Bordal profiled an up-and coming singer from Austin, Texas — a guy who had learned to play guitar working in a pawn shop, and was still driving a fish delivery truck to make ends meet. But it ended up being a big year for ...

On her 7th birthday, a little girl named Claire disappears in a seaside Haitian village. Through Claire's fictional journey, award-winning author Edwidge Danticat shares glimmers of her own childhood in Haiti.

In Claire of the Sea Light, the protagonist's mother died during childbirth, and her father is a poor fisherman, ...

Franz Ferdinand's 2004 debut accomplished two things: a concise introduction to the band in the form of a worldwide hit single, as well as a firm declaration that the angular guitars of post-punk and the stomping rhythms of disco could be natural bedfellows. Nine years after "Take Me Out," ...

Evan Roth knows how to get a rise out of the people and organizations he targets.

Over his career, the Michigan-born "hacker-artist" has taken on Google, the Transportation Safety Administration, and — most bravely of all — Justin Bieber's fans, Beliebers.

Some might call him a prankster, a rabble-rouser, or ...

Patricia Polacco has written and illustrated more than 90 picture books. Her young readers are drawn to her stories about family and growing up. She has won many awards for her illustrations, which are done in gorgeous, full watercolor. Polacco's latest book is called The Blessing Cup.

Polacco tells NPR's ...

In a time when recollections can be reduced to just a few words, Jean Shepherd delivered monologues, soliloquies and musings. He was a raconteur.

Shepherd served in the Army during World War II — that same Army that stormed the beaches on D-Day and raised the flag on Iwo Jima, ...

Naomi and Sally Durance are heroes of the Great War, that war which was supposed to end all wars. It didn't, but it did help these two Australian sisters overcome sibling suspicion and grow closer to each other.

Naomi and Sally — at the center of Thomas Keneally's new book, ...

Twitter isn't always the best place for big, thorny philosophical conversations. But it's a great forum for catharsis and taking the temperature of a popular sentiment. Sometimes, rarely, it's actually both.

If you were on Twitter last week, you may have seen a lot of rallying around the satirical but ...

Lawrence Cumberbatch was only 16 when he trekked, on foot, from New York City to Washington, D.C., to join the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Lawrence, now 66, was the youngest person on the march with the Brooklyn branch of the Congress of Racial Equality.

His parents thought ...