Episode Details

Two political scientists sit down with co-host Jeff Tiberii to unpack the election results in North Carolina. We were again a ticket splitting state - a look at why, and our 'purple ballot' history. Plus, how Trump won NC, a look at other state races, and what comes next.

Guests

Chris Cooper, Robert Lee Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of Public Policy Institute at Western Carolina University, and author of Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer

Michael Bitzer, Politics Department Chair and Professor of Politics and History, Catawba College

Then... In 1944, a Black Army private was shot and killed in Durham, NC by a white bus driver. In recent years, community members have been hard at work to honor the life of Private Booker T. Spicely, who was killed after challenging Jim Crow laws.

Last year, a historical marker was erected near the place he was gunned down.

Today, a new play “Changing Same: The Cold-Blooded Murder of Booker T. Spicely” begins its run, exploring Spicely’s life and the racial violence that ended it. Co-host Leoneda Inge talks with the co-writers of the new production and the head of the Booker T. Spicely Committee about Spicely’s legacy and about what has not changed since he was killed eighty years ago.

Guests

James Williams, chairman of the Booker T. Spicely Committee and head of the North Carolina Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Criminal Justice System

Howard L. Craft, playwright, poet, essayist, and arts educator; Piller Professor of the Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Mike Wiley, director, actor, and playwright; Artist in Residence for the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Stephen and Janet Bear Assistant Research Professor of Arts, Ethics, and Education in the Program in Education at Duke University