Making Folgen

Toni Morrison is widely considered one of America’s greatest writers. She published 11 novels and is the recipient of a Pulitzer, a Nobel and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Sula and Beloved are just a few of her works that are considered great American classics.Before she was a celebrated author, she was a pioneering editor at Random House, opening doors for a whole generation of Black writers, including Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton and Gayl Jones. Her editorship assembled a strong network of the most prominent Black intellectuals of the 20th century.But Toni Morrison’s road to success was not a straight shot. She only published her first novel around 40 years old. And when she found her footing, she changed the face of American literature.On the Making season finale, host Brandon Pope sits down with leading Toni Morrison scholars, including Dana Williams, Carolyn Denard, Autumn Womack and Courtney Thorsson, to unpack the trajectory of an American literary hero.Making tells the story of a different, iconic figure every episode. Subscribe now.

“I don’t believe I’m going to die slipping on a piece of ice. I don’t believe I’m going to die because I got a bad heart…I believe that I will be able to die as a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.” - Fred Hampton, 1969Fred Hampton became the Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party when he was just years out of high school. His oratory talent and intellectual grasp on leftist literature quickly shot him to stardom in activist circles. But, his leadership did not last long. In 1969, when he was just 21 years old, he was assassinated during a raid on his home orchestrated by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Chicago Police Department and the FBI.“He knew the power and potential of Fred Hampton,” former Congressman Bobby Rush said of the FBI Director at the time. “So I’m telling you, the man was nothing but greatness.”Today, in a special Black History Month episode of Making, in collaboration with The Rundown podcast, we tell the story of iconic Chicago liberation activist Fred Hampton. Our hosts Brandon Pope and Erin Allen sat down with original members of the Black Panther Party, attorneys who fought his post-assassination lawsuits in the 1960s and family members who carry on his legacy.Making tells the story of a different, iconic figure every episode. Subscribe now.

In just 86 years Maya Angelou lived dozens of lives. Perhaps best known for her seminal autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou is one of the most celebrated literary minds in history, whose poetry and prose has touched generations of readers. But before Caged Bird, Angelou danced and sang on and off Broadway, earned the moniker “Miss Calypso” in the 1950s, called dozens of American cities and African nations home, and even became the first Black woman to work as a cable car conductor in San Francisco. On this episode of Making, host Brandon Pope sits down with Rita Coburn, co-director of the Peabody-Award-winning PBS documentary Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise; Randal Jelks, professor of African and African American studies and American studies at the University of Kansas; and Dr. Maxine Mimms, the founder of the Tacoma Campus of Evergreen State College and a longtime friend of Angelou.“Her main word was courage,” Dr. Mimms said, “The courage to love, the courage to walk, the courage to move.”Making tells the story of a different, iconic figure every episode. Subscribe now.