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Hope Draped In Black

Joseph Winters

For some, the election of America's first black president marked the victory of a long-fought struggle for racial equality.

But the a new book by Duke professor Joseph R. Winters asserts that the battle for racial equality is not one of uninterrupted progress, but is instead a dynamic and evolving one marked with deep pain and melancholy. Winters traces a literary history that demonstrates the pain and struggle of African-American experiences and argues that America is not "post-racial."

Host Frank Stasio talks with Winters about "Hope Draped In Black: Race, Melancholy and the Agony of Progress" (Duke University Press/2016).

Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

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Charlie Shelton-Ormond

Charlie Shelton-Ormond is a podcast producer for WUNC.

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