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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Here on Code Switch, we love food just as much as we love history. So we couldn't let the Juneteenth pass by without getting into the culinary traditions that have been passed down for generations. -
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.
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Before 2020, the Karen was known by other names. NPR's Code Switch looks at the evolution of the entitled white woman, how her name has changed, but her behavior – and its consequences – not so much.
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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.
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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.
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A new biography of the African-American playwright shows that she was so much more than her most famous work: A Raisin in the Sun.
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Arthur Mitchell was the founding director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, the country's first black ballet company. He died Wednesday at the age of 84.
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"The best fashion show is definitely on the street — always has been and always will be." Bill Cunningham
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Two friends, one black, one white, produced a short play about Carolyn Bryant, the white woman who accused Emmett Till of whistling at her. Since his murder, racial tensions exist six decades later.
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A love story between a black Army nurse and a German POW during World War II? You couldn't make that story up — and Alexis Clark, author of the upcoming book, Enemies in Love, didn't.
