Tagged: history

Rumor has it that somewhere in a forgotten corner of a basement somewhere in Seattle there's a decaying 3-D model of a brand new Yesler Terrace. It was dreamed up in the late 1960s but, like the R H Thomson Expressway or the parking lot that was planned for where the Pike Place Market still stands, it never made it out of the world of imagination and onto the grid of the real world.

In 2013, after six years of planning, it appears another vision of a brand new development will take root where Yesler Terrace now stands. It's not the first transformation this patch of ground has seen though. This is the story of two places that occupy that ground -- one in the present and one in the past.

Journalist Ray Suarez just finished writing a new book called "Latino Americans." The way he sees it, American history as it's currently taught tends to ignore Latinos. He hopes to change that. His book starts in the 17th century and goes up until yesterday, when he sent the book off to his publisher. Suarez gives Ross Reynolds the long view of "Latino America." Below are highlights from the interview, along with excerpts from his 2010 speech, "The Browning of America."

By the time Washington became a state in 1889, slavery had been abolished for nearly a quarter century. But there are a few documented cases of slavery in the Washington Territory. One is Charles Mitchell, who was born a slave and brought to the territory in 1853.

How did the 12-year-old escaped slave end up in Washington and why did his slavery cause a fight between Canada and the US? Ross Reynolds talks with storyteller Eva Abram to hear the story.

When you look at a person, do you "see race?" Sharon Leslie Morgan and Tom DeWolf have been asking that question as they sat down at dinner tables around America. They found the lingering pain of slavery, and some paths to healing. They join us for a conversation about the journey toward racial equality.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond joins Ross Reynolds in front of a live studio audience. For decades he has studied Papua New Guinea cultures. He writes about what we can learn from traditional social organizations in his new book "The World Until Yesterday." Below are highlights from the interview.