Karen Grigsby Bates
Karen Grigsby Bates is the Senior Correspondent for Code Switch, a podcast that reports on race and ethnicity. A veteran NPR reporter, Bates covered race for the network for several years before becoming a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is especially interested in stories about the hidden history of race in America—and in the intersection of race and culture. She oversees much of Code Switch's coverage of books by and about people of color, as well as issues of race in the publishing industry. Bates is the co-author of a best-selling etiquette book (Basic Black: Home Training for Modern Times) and two mystery novels; she is also a contributor to several anthologies of essays. She lives in Los Angeles and reports from NPR West.
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Claims of racism are at the heart of a scandal within the organization Romance Writers of America — a powerful industry group with a lot more going for it than heaving bosoms and swarthy pirates.
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A book is still a perfect gift. So, because we're betting that some people have a bit of the procrastinator in them, here's a Code Switch gift to you: Our list of books that stuck with us this year.
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What's old is new. From ingredients to techniques, chefs are playing with that most traditional of comfort foods: lasagna. We dig in to what's between the layers from nonna to nouveau.
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Aaron Dean fired through the window of Atatiana Jefferson's home after responding to a call from a neighbor. -
Diahann Carroll died Friday at 84. Carroll was a Broadway, night club, and Hollywood singer and actress when NBC asked her to star in the sitcom Julia, as the first non-stereotyped Black character.
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Recorded after a traumatic period in the singer's life, Gloria Gaynor's disco hit quickly found its true audience: LGBT communities, survivors of domestic violence and others pushed aside by society. -
Morrison was the author of Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. -
100 years ago this week, some of the bloodiest race riots this country has ever experienced erupted in more than two dozen cities, including Chicago. It was known as the Red Summer. -
A hundred years ago this week, a bloody race riot erupted in Chicago — one of several that occurred in the U.S. after WWI. Historians and an eye witness discuss the deadly riot and what came from it.
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For more than a century the Chicago Defender has chronicled Black life in America. After Wednesday it will cease its print editions.
