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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Longtime NPR correspondent Ina Jaffe has died. She was 75 years old, and had been living with cancer for the past few years. -
We've heard about Rosa Parks and her crucial role in the Montgomery bus boycott. But Parks was just one of many women who organized for years. In this episode, those women tell their own story. -
Constance Baker Motley's life—as a lawyer, as a politician and the first Black woman appointed to the Federal bench – is outlined in a new biography by author Tomiko Brown-Nagin: Civil Rights Queen. -
Tributes have cascaded in since Sidney Poitier died. And so they should have. He was an unparalleled actor, a committed activist, and a beloved family member. He was also, frankly, a heartthrob. -
In her debut book, My Monticello, author Jocelyn Nicole Johnson asks what it means to claim a home in a place like Charlottesville, Va., — where whom the city belongs to has long been in question. -
Paula Yoo discusses her new book From A Whisper to A Rallying Cry and how the 1982 death of Chin, a Chinese American man in Detroit, led a new generation of Asian Americans into political action. -
Stories about Black history often focus on struggle and suffering—but Beverly Jenkins, the author of more than 40 historical romance novels, has spent her career telling stories about Black love. -
After the Capitol was cleared of insurrectionists on January 6, there was work to be done — and it wasn't lost on many that cleaning up the mess would fall largely to Black and Brown people. -
Born Barbara Elaine Smith, she began her career as a model and went on to gain fame and influence as a restaurateur, celebrity chef, lifestyle doyenne and entertainer. -
In her new memoir, Straight tells the story of the women in her family—her Swiss-German blood relatives and her African American, Indigenous and Creole in-laws who crossed the U.S. to settle in Calif.
