WNYC & WQXR Celebrate Black History Month 2025

(New York – February 3, 2025) – WNYC and WQXR are celebrating Black History Month with special on-air and online programming throughout the month of February. Highlights include All Of It’s series on Harlem’s outsized role in NYC life and culture – past and present; Brian Lehrer’s ‘100 Years of 100 Things’ segment on housing discrimination; and WQXR’s annual broadcasts of Terrance McKnight’s now-iconic audio documentaries about Black classical pioneers Florence Price, Hazel Scott, and others. 

Additional specials include “The Other Moonshot,” a portrait of three Black aerospace engineers in Los Angeles who worked on the Apollo missions, despite barely being allowed in the room; “Haitian Voices: Exodus, Community and the Vital Role of Music,” a deep dive into Haitian music; and “Whispers in Wilmington,” a retelling of the racial violence that reigned in Wilmington, NC in 1898, designed to eliminate all memory of the city’s highly successful Black community.

Full schedule below:

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a group of African Americans have discovered their ancestors came from this country on the West Coast of Africa before they were trafficked to the United States and enslaved. Over a two week trip, they explore the bustling city of Freetown – a very different experience to the USA. And yet it has a vibrancy and welcoming spirit which takes the group by surprise.

A new special hour-long edition of Witness History from the BBC World Service, bringing together some incredible stories about the Black experience. The people who were actually there share their own stories that are fascinating, harrowing and inspiring.

WQXR’s award-winning podcast “Every Voice with Terrance McKnight” investigates and contextualizes Black figures in operas by Mozart and Verdi. McKnight and contemporary opera composer Dr. Sharon Willis look at these fictional characters and the time periods of their operas in contrast with the historical characters in Willis’ own work. 

WQXR’s Terrence McKnight hosts this one-hour special that takes a deep dive into the musical compositions of the Harlem Renaissance icon Langston Hughes. The special examines Hughes’ work in music and his collaborations with Black composer William Grant Still. Through songs, cantatas, musicals and librettos, Hughes’ work continued his work denouncing war, combating segregation, and restoring human dignity in the face of Jim Crow.

Powerful people are often recognized with a statue. But what happens when there’s no statue or memorial to a traumatic event? This special sheds light on an incident of racial violence in 1898, designed to eliminate all memory of a highly successful Black community in Wilmington, North Carolina.

This special program, hosted by author, educator and activist DeRay Mckesson, celebrates Black authors and politicians who have rethought and rewritten the narratives we tell ourselves about our shared history and who we are as a nation.

Hazel Scott was a Juilliard-trained pianist who knew the classical style and was also mentored by Fats Waller, Art Tatum, and Billie Holiday. She was a celebrated entertainer, with her own television show, and was married to minister and Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. So why isn’t she better-remembered today? Terrance McKnight will answer the question and share some of Scott’s incredible music. 

From “Marketplace Morning Report,” Lee Hawkins investigates how a secret business deal allowed his and other Black families to seek better housing, schools and neighborhoods in a Twin Cities suburb – and how that initial progress led to discriminatory practices that exacerbated the racial wealth gap.

Weaving together the voices of Haitian artists and activists, in dialogue with historical audio from the one of the world’s most distinguished radio archives, this documentary chronicles how Haitians have always used song as the preeminent tool for preserving their shared memory of oppression and injustice — and for mapping a hopeful vision for their future.

Host Razia Iqbal sits down with three legendary writers and thinkers to talk about the impact of James Baldwin. Baldwin was an extraordinary American writer, who raised important insights into American power, privilege, race and class. His work continues to impact writers and activists to this day. The episode includes conversations with poet Nikki Giovanni, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates and lawyer and civil rights activist Bryan Stevenson.

Florence Price was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, educated at the New England Conservatory, and employed as a college professor, a church musician, and a theater organist. She composed more than 300 pieces of music and was the first woman of African descent to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra. Hosted by WQXR’s Terrance McKnight.

You may think you know everything about our race to space. But there is still, even after all this time, a version that’s never been heard. This is the story of the Black aerospace engineers in Los Angeles who worked on the Apollo missions — despite barely being allowed in the room.

An exploration of the dramatic political events beginning with a speech in Minneapolis in 1948 that eventually led to the landmark civil rights laws of the 1960s.

Music played a very important role in the life and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. Hosted by Terrance McKnight, this program explores the music that informed Dr. King’s life and the role that music played in the Civil Rights Movement.

All of It is focusing on the vibrant, trailblazing neighborhood of Harlem for Black History Month. Harlem has served as a center for Black creative expression in art literature and music, and has been a pioneering force in both national and international civil rights.  Host Alison Stewart and special guests will explore Harlem’s historic contributions and the vital role it continues to play in NYC today. 

The Brian Lehrer Show will continue its centennial series “100 Years of 100 Things,” with a focus in February on Black History, including:

• 100 Years of Housing Inequality with law professor and property rights scholar Bernadette Atuahene discussing her new book, Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America (Little, Brown, 2025).
• 100 Years of the ‘Color Line’ with Johns Hopkins legal and cultural historian Martha S. Jones discussing her forthcoming book, The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir (Basic Books, 2025).
• 100 Years with David Levering Lewis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who tells the story of his own family in his new book, The Stained Glass Window: A Family History as the American Story, 1790-1958 (Penguin, 2025).

WNYC’s 19th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration  – held last month – is available to stream throughout the month of February. The event, in partnership with the Apollo Theater, explored Dr. King’s enduring legacy through the lens of belonging, reflecting on his vision for a just and inclusive society. Powerful conversations with prominent public intellectuals, community and faith leaders, authors and artists explored the complexities of belonging, justice, and collective responsibility in our contemporary moment.