This episode was originally released on December 21, 2013
When did the MAGA movement emerge?
Where did the idea of DOGE start?
Who came up with this idea that we can just strip immigrants of their constitutional rights?
Fifteen years ago, I started a storytelling project for a relatively new audio medium called “podcasts.” Most episodes featured long-form conversations and in-depth interviews with regular Black people. (To be fair, I did interview two non-Black guests – a guy who immigrated from Palestine and a young white supremacist who was pushing this crazy idea called the “Great Replacement Theory.”) The format was simple – one interesting person talking about one interesting subject for an entire episode. But in 2013, I published an episode with three separate stories that were all connected to one place:
Shelby County, Alabama.
In part one, we follow Calera, Ala. City Councilman Ernest Montgomery as he fights a redistricting plan that threatened to reduce the power of Black voters. Montgomery becomes so determined to win that his case eventually makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.
This is the origin story of Shelby vs. Holder.
Part two investigates a battle between a group of parents and a suburban school district over a plan to eliminate school buses. The administrators claim they simply want to cut spending but the parents allege the goal is more sinister:
Resegregation.
In part three, we try to find out how Shelby County became ground zero in the conservative effort to use local and county law enforcement to target immigrant communities. We eventually uncover the people behind the Alabama statute that became known as the “Papers Please Law.”
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