Baldwin & Co. Author Talks

Is American democracy in danger, and what could a third Trump term mean for the nation's future?

In this provocative conversation, bestselling author, historian, and antiracism scholar Dr. Ibram X. Kendi sits down with educator and cultural critic Dr. Jerid P. Woods to examine Donald Trump's political influence, the rise of authoritarianism, and the dangerous role of racial fear in American politics.

Drawing from his book Chain of Ideas, Ibram Kendi explores how the Great Replacement Theory, attacks on diversity and inclusion, immigration policies, and political propaganda are used to divide Americans and consolidate power...

In this powerful conversation, Ocean Vuong and E.M. Tran examine the people capitalism often pushes to the margins—immigrants, refugees, low-wage workers, caregivers, addicts, and elders whose lives rarely fit America’s preferred success story. Through The Emperor of Gladness, Vuong rejects the idea that dignity must come from wealth, upward mobility, or escaping poverty, arguing instead that lives built around work, survival, friendship, and care are worthy on their own terms. He challenges the mythology of the American Dream and asks us to look directly at the people whose labor keeps society moving, even when the systems arou...

What really happened after Colin Kaepernick took a knee—and how much did the NFL, the media, and even other players work to contain the fallout? In this explosive conversation, Ryan Clark, Colin Kaepernick, and Eric Reid pull back the curtain on the fear, money, pressure, blackballing, media manipulation, and internal resistance surrounding one of the most controversial protests in sports history. Kaepernick and Reid reveal how many players privately wanted to support the movement but were unwilling to risk their careers, while openly discussing the enormous personal and financial price they paid for refusing to stay silent.

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Nicki Minaj’s political evolution has sparked a much bigger conversation about fame, power, loyalty, and Black cultural responsibility. Marcus Anthony Hunter and David Johns go beyond the headlines to ask a harder question: what happens when a Black celebrity’s politics begin to clash with the community that helped make them powerful? This is not just a conversation about Nicki Minaj or MAGA—it’s about influence, identity, accountability, and who gets to shape the culture in this moment.

This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural...

The Trump administration just overhauled roughly $4 billion in homelessness funding, shifting emphasis away from permanent housing. Trump-backed changes to SNAP have coincided with about 4 million fewer Americans receiving food assistance. From food to housing, Gary Hoover asks the uncomfortable question behind “America Is Killing Poor People”: when the safety net gets smaller for people already struggling to survive, is poverty really their failure—or ours? Economist Gary “Hoov” Hoover, Executive Director of the Murphy Institute and professor of economics and law, argues that America doesn’t simply fail poor people—it often builds systems that keep them poor and then blames th...

Former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, offers a striking perspective on Kamala Harris and what her presidential defeat says about women and power in America. Braun argues that Harris was extraordinarily qualified, understood the issues, and “did everything right”—and rejects the idea that the loss should simply be placed at Harris’s feet. Drawing from her own experience breaking political barriers, Braun connects Harris’s treatment to deeply rooted attitudes about whether women are capable of holding ultimate authority, including serving as commander in chief. Yet she remains ho...

Antonio Michael Downing joins Jerid P. Woods for a powerful conversation about ancestry, identity, writing, and claiming your place in the Black literary tradition. Antonio reflects on the influence of his grandmother, overcoming impostor syndrome, removing ego from the creative process, and how doubt—even from haters—can become fuel for purpose, discipline, and greatness.

Order Antonio Michael Downing Book Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9781668066102

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In this gripping and emotionally charged conversation, author Jared Fishman and Judge Calvin Johnson unpack the horrifying case of Henry Glover in post-Katrina New Orleans and the federal investigation that exposed corruption, violence, and systemic failures inside the New Orleans Police Department. Fishman reflects on his journey from international conflict zones to the DOJ, revealing how war, race, policing, and power intersected in one of the most disturbing civil rights cases in modern American history. Together, they explore police cover-ups, the “blue wall” of silence, the moral cost of institutional corruption, and how the Henry Glover case ultimately helped forc...

Why are coroner's reports often incomplete or misleading? This deep dive reveals how societal biases, historical disenfranchisement, and a focus on biology over social context create a "coroner's silence," obscuring the true circumstances of many deaths, especially those involving state institutions.

Terence Keel is an interdisciplinary scholar and Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) within the Department of African American Studies and the Institute for Society and Genetics. He is the Founding Director of the Biocritical Studies Lab, which examines the intersections of race, religion, law, and modern science, with a focus on police...

In this powerful and unflinching dialogue, Nikesha Elise Williams and Taylor Murphy examine Nikesha's book, "The Seven Daughters of Dupree" book. This conversation examines the deep intersections of history, identity, and storytelling through Nikesha's novel spanning 160 years of Black womanhood. The conversation confronts uncomfortable truths about slavery, generational trauma, and the myths America tells about itself—challenging the idea that enslaved people were passive and highlighting the many forms of resistance that have been erased from mainstream narratives.

Order Nikesha Elise Williams Books Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9781668051948
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In this gripping exchange, cognitive scientist Maya Shankar and journalist Evan Smith confront a disturbing reality: we are drowning in information—and it’s breaking us. From the psychological toll of nonstop news to the quiet collapse of civic participation, they unpack how doomscrolling, distrust in media, and algorithm-driven outrage are reshaping our minds and our democracy. But beneath the chaos lies something even more unsettling—people aren’t disengaging because they don’t care… they’re disengaging because they’re overwhelmed. And that may be the most dangerous shift of all. This conversation doesn’t just diagnose the problem—it exposes...

Irvin Weathersby Jr. and cultural strategist Gia Hamilton deliver a deeply reflective and personal conversation about grief, memory, and the transformative power of storytelling. With poetic clarity and emotional honesty, Irvin shares how the loss of his father and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina shaped his writing and identity as a Black man from New Orleans. Gia Hamilton, in turn, explores the intersections of trauma and creativity, asking how Black artists reclaim beauty from pain and build archives that preserve our truths. Together, they dive into the messy, necessary work of naming what hurts—and finding liberation in the te...

In a landmark first-ever podcast conversation, Eddie Glaude Jr. and Ibram X. Kendi sit down for a powerful, deeply honest exchange on race, democracy, morality, and power in America. What makes this conversation so compelling is that it goes far beyond surface-level political commentary—they wrestle with whether racism is best confronted through policy, moral transformation, or both, and challenge the idea that simply “admitting” racism exists is enough. Instead, they argue that America has too often confused sentiment, symbolism, and performance with actual structural change.

The conversation also takes a sharp and urgent turn into how anti-r...

Political activist Gary Chambers and entrepreneur/author Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon deliver a bold blueprint for what real Black liberation looks like—beyond hashtags and into strategy, ownership, and community-driven resistance. Reflecting on Hallmon’s book No One Is Self-Made, the duo dismantles the myth of individual success and call out the comfort-addicted, privilege-insulated tendencies stalling progress in Black communities. They challenge the “we’re not our ancestors” narrative with reverence, reminding listeners of the grit, sacrifice, and strategy our elders wielded without applause. The message is clear: we need less performance, more patience, less ego, more unity—and we must be will...

Ben Crump is one of America’s most prominent civil rights attorneys, known for representing the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others in landmark cases seeking accountability and justice.

Gary Chambers is a Louisiana activist and political organizer recognized nationally for his unapologetic advocacy for voting rights, criminal justice reform, and economic justice.

The conversation between civil rights attorney Ben Crump and activist Gary Chambers is a political strategy session for the unfinished work of American democracy. Crump opens with a blunt reminder: legality and morality are not the same th...

Tia Williams: Tia Williams is the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June and a veteran beauty editor who has spent decades centering Black joy and modern glamour in her storytelling.

Farrah Rochon: Farrah Rochon is a USA Today bestselling author celebrated for her hit series The Boyfriend Projectand her ability to weave ambitious, relatable Black women into the heart of contemporary romance.

Author of Seven Days in June, Tia Williams and author Farrah Rochon traced the long, winding road behind Williams’s success—one paved with magazine deadlines, rejected manuscripts, stub...

Dr. Uché Blackstock is a renowned emergency medicine physician and the founder of Advancing Health Equity, whose memoir Legacy tackles the deep-seated racial disparities within the U.S. healthcare system.

Jarvis DeBerry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and celebrated columnist known for his sharp, soulful insights into social justice and the Black experience in America.

In a powerful and deeply personal conversation at Baldwin & Co., Dr. Uché Blackstock and journalist Jarvis DeBerry tear the veil off America’s broken healthcare system—exposing not just systemic racism, but the emotional and physical toll it exacts on Bla...

Dr. Alexandra Jones is a seasoned archaeologist and educator dedicated to empowering communities through the preservation and excavation of African American history.

Tara Roberts is a National Geographic Explorer and storyteller whose work uncovers the lost stories of the transatlantic slave trade through the lens of maritime archaeology.

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts and archeologist Dr. Alexandra Jones dove into an electrifying conversation that spanned the deep metaphor of water, the power of the divine feminine, and the urgency of community action. Using Roberts’ new memoir Written in the Waters as a launchpad, the tw...

Kellie Carter Jackson is a historian and writer (author of 'We Refuse') whose work centers Black resistance, abolition, and the political meaning of freedom in American history.

Shennette Garrett-Scott is a historian and author whose scholarship explores Black women’s economic power, labor, and political life beyond traditional civil rights narratives.

What unfolded on that stage was not a polite author talk—it was a bracing reminder that history has teeth. Writing We Refuse in the heat of 2020, Kellie Carter Jackson rejects what she calls the “trauma porn” of American racial storytelling and replaces it with som...

Sean Goode is a writer and cultural thinker whose work interrogates Black identity, power, and the political meaning embedded in popular culture.

Kehinde Andrews is a scholar of Black studies and author whose work challenges liberal myths of progress and exposes the structural realities of racism and capitalism.

What unfolds in this conversation is not a debate so much as a reckoning. Kehinde Andrews and Sean Goode circle Malcolm X not as a frozen icon, but as a living diagnostic tool—one that exposes how narrowly Blackness has been defined, weaponized, and sold back to Bl...

Phyllis R. Dixon is the author of Something in the Water, a gripping novel that blends political intrigue, environmental justice, and deeply human stakes.

Cecilia Guillen is today’s conversation partner, bringing a sharp, community-centered lens to stories that sit at the crossroads of culture, power, and lived experience.

Phyllis R. Dixon tells a story about contaminated water, political corruption, and the quiet violence of being ignored—themes that echo loudly in today’s headlines as communities across the country continue to face environmental neglect and unequal access to safety and accountability. Joined by Cecilia Guille...

In this wide-ranging but sharply focused conversation, Nathan J. Robinson and Jamelle Bouie argue that the central danger facing American democracy is not mass apathy or popular authoritarianism, but a crisis of elite legitimacy and institutional misalignment with a public that has already changed more than its leaders realize. They contend that reactions to Trumpism—especially resistance to state repression, overt racism, and the abandonment of democratic norms—reflect decades-long cultural shifts toward greater inclusion, historical awareness, and moral commitment to equality, rather than a sudden outbreak of “woke excess.” Jamelle Bouie frames this moment as a failure of elite so...

Dr. Daniel Black and Michael Harriot delivered a spiritually charged, intellectually fierce, and soul-deep conversation that cracked open the Black experience in America. What started as a discussion on land, lineage, and education quickly evolved into a firestorm of revelations—about ancestral wisdom, the double-tongued language of survival, and the misunderstood power of the Black church. They dissected the myth of white-washed religion, honored the Black rural roots of storytelling, and lit up the room with tales of healing, ritual, and resistance. Together, they offered a profound thesis: Black knowledge is not just for advancement—it is a weapon, a ri...

In a discussion held in New Orleans on February 3, 2026, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie and Tulane law professor Carla Laroche explored the haunting parallels between the Reconstruction era and today's political climate. Carla framed Reconstruction as a period of profound promises—codified in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments—that were ultimately betrayed by the rise of white supremacy and Jim Crow. Jamelle argued that the era remains vital because we are currently grappling with the same existential questions it raised: Who counts as an American, and what is the nature of our freedom?

Ja...

Dr. Uché Blackstock and journalist Jarvis DeBerry engaged in a piercing, personal, and deeply emotional conversation about race, medicine, education, and the invisible weight of Black excellence. Centered around Blackstock’s acclaimed book Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, the discussion revealed how systemic bias infiltrates everything—from classroom desks to hospital beds. They spoke candidly about the burden of overperformance, the quiet trauma of being “the only one,” and the emotional toll of raising Black children in a world that often denies their worth. With reflections on family, identity, and institutional mistrust, this dialogue offered more than...

Shaka Senghor is a leading voice on criminal justice reform, a tech investor, and the author of Writing My Wrongs and Letters to the Sons of Society.

Is society addicted to rage and victimhood? In this powerful conversation, New York Times bestselling author Shaka Senghor (Writing My Wrongs) joins Jerid Woods to dismantle the modern narratives around resilience, race, and personal agency.

They dive deep into the uncomfortable truths about monetizing pain, the "addiction" to being offended, and why true freedom comes from refusing to give up your power to external circumstances. Shaka opens up...

Kellie Carter Jackson is a historian, author, and professor whose work explores Black resistance, abolition, and the intellectual history of Black political thought in America.

Shennette Garrett-Scott is a historian and author specializing in Black women’s economic history, examining how Black women used business, finance, and mutual aid to build power and autonomy in the United States.

This conversation is an exploration of how Black women use literature, history, and storytelling as tools of survival, resistance, and meaning-making. Moving fluidly between personal memory and scholarly insight, Kellie Carter Jackson & Shennette Garrett-Scott argue that li...

We are living through what Dr. Imani Perry calls a "season of destruction," a deliberate era where the legacy of the freedom movement is being erased. In this riveting dialogue, Glaude and Dr. Imani Perry do not just lament the state of the nation; they dissect the very soul of American democracy.

The conversation centers on a powerful dialectic: "freedom snatching" versus "freedom seeking". Dr. Imani Perry argues that we must look beyond the mid-20th-century Civil Rights movement—which we often view as the norm—and instead study the "plague years" following Reconstruction to understand our curr...

In a candid, laughter-laced conversation, Tarriona "Tank" Ball pulls back the curtain on vulnerability as both artistic method and emotional necessity. Discussing her poetry collection The Thing About Falling, Ball distinguishes this work from her earlier book Vulnerable by one crucial shift: this time, the poems were not written for anyone else—not an ex, not an audience—but for herself. What emerges is an unguarded meditation on love after heartbreak, the danger of rushing healing, and the quiet education that happens in the “in-between” relationships. Falling, she explains, is never intentional, but survival depends on whether someone—or something—...

Bernice L. McFadden is an award-winning American novelist and memoirist whose work explores Black womanhood, ancestry, trauma, and survival through lyrical, historically grounded storytelling.

In a conversation that moves with the force of lived history, Bernice L. McFadden refuses the comfort of distance. Interviewed by Dr. Ebony Perro, Professor of Practice at Tulane University. Bernice's memoir, Firstborn Girls, emerges not as a private act of recollection but as a public reckoning—one that insists family stories and American history are inseparable. Written during the pandemic and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests, McFadden frames her life as...

What happens when four of the most influential forces in entrepreneurship, media, and culture sit down for a raw, unfiltered conversation at one of the country’s most disruptive Black-owned bookstore? You get a conversation that flips the script on success, reveals the ugly truths behind wealth-building, and shows you how to break generational curses in real-time. In this explosive dialogue moderated by David Shands at Baldwin & Co., Earn Your Leisure co-founders Troy Millings and Rashad Bilal sit alongside hospitality mogul Larry Morrow to break down how they went from kitchen tables and iPhones to multi-million-dollar brands—and why beli...

Grammy-nominated vocalist Tonya Boyd-Cannon and celebrated visual artist Charly Palmer engage in a riveting, soul-baring conversation that moves between art, ancestry, mental health, and creative purpose. With disarming honesty, they explore how grief, trauma, and generational memory shape their work—and why Black artists must create from spirit, not ego. From Palmer’s reflections on using flowers as both beauty and protection, to Boyd-Cannon’s revelation of how roses became emotional triggers, the two uncover how creation becomes a sacred act of survival and healing. The conversation crescendos into a powerful meditation on legacy, water as a spiritual medium, the sa...

In a wide-ranging, unguarded conversation, Malcolm Gladwell and former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu use the city itself as a lens to examine America’s deeper fractures. What begins as a meditation on why New Orleans remains stubbornly, almost defiantly distinctive—resisting the cultural flattening seen in cities like Austin and Nashville—quickly expands into a larger argument: culture, not capital, is what holds societies together. Music, food, sport, and place are not luxuries, they argue, but the glue that sustains democracy when institutions falter. In New Orleans, joy and pain live side by side, producing a civic soul that c...

Dr. Daniel Black and Avery Young" "This conversation is a masterclass in Black language, music, spirituality, and survival. Dr. Daniel Black and Avery Young explore how Black people have always communicated with more than words—through rhythm, silence, gesture, melody, and the body itself. From church songs and blues traditions to humming, repetition, and coded speech, they break down how Black expression became a form of protection, resistance, and joy when speech alone wasn’t safe. Moving between personal stories, theology, music, and history, they reveal how gospel and blues are really the same language spoken in different places, and...

Robert F. Smith is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners and one of the most influential investors and philanthropists in technology and education today.

Dr. Monique Guillory is an educator, cultural scholar, and university president known for her leadership in higher education and her work at the intersection of Black studies, innovation, and institutional transformation.

This wide-ranging conversation brings together history, technology, education, and moral leadership to confront a single reality: the world is changing faster than our institutions are willing to admit. Robert Smith—in conversation with the President of Dillard Un...

This conversation traces a sweeping and urgent history of Black women as architects of the global human rights movement, long before the language of “human rights” became mainstream. Historian Keisha N. Blain explains how her book Without Fear uncovers the forgotten women—activists, writers, missionaries, and organizers—who refused to limit their demands to U.S. civil rights and instead framed Black freedom as a universal human claim.

Moving from the 19th century to the present, the discussion highlights figures like Ida B. Wells, Madam C.J. Walker, Maria Stewart, Margaret Cartwright, and Katie Diallo, revealing how these wo...

What happens when two of America’s sharpest thinkers get brutally honest about race, power, hope—and the lie of progress? In this electric, no-holds-barred conversation, Charles Blow and Don Lemon blow the lid off respectability politics, coalition fatigue, and the myth of a post-racial America. From the illusion of diversity to the erasure of Black history, they lay bare the truth: we’re not returning from the edge—we’re going over it.

Charles Blow, a New York Times columnist and bestselling author known for his sharp, uncompromising analysis of race and politics, and Don Lemon, is an Emmy...

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Imani Perry and Maurice Carlos Ruffin delivered a conversation that was part history lesson, part cultural critique, and part sermon on survival. Imani Perry, with her blend of razor-sharp intellect and poetic cadence, challenged the myths America tells itself about freedom and progress, while Maurice Ruffin brought wit and piercing clarity to the lived realities of race, class...

In a sharp, witty, and unflinching conversation at Baldwin & Co. bookstore, W. Kamau Bell and Cebo Campbell dissected the deep roots and modern manifestations of privilege, power, and race in America. Drawing parallels between environmental mismanagement and cultural erasure, they lamented how indigenous wisdom and Black creativity are often ignored or co-opted, while white privilege continues to reward audacity and mediocrity—evident in everything from Silicon Valley scams to the myth-making of American media. Cebo reflected on the inspiration for his book, “Sky Full of Elephants,” revealing how the simple act of swapping a Black protagonist into a classic white...

This conversation with Dr. Daniel Black moves through the delicate and difficult terrain of healing—across bloodlines, across memory, across time. Drawing from his novel Isaac’s Song, Dr. Black explores what it means to face generational wounds without letting them define us. He breaks open the quiet myths of Black masculinity, the fear of vulnerability, the stories we fabricate to survive, and the ancestral technologies that still guide us toward freedom.

Through intimate storytelling and sharp cultural insight, Dr. Black unpacks power, forgiveness, usefulness, memory, and the ritual genius of Black people. This is a conversation abou...