MPR News with Angela Davis Minnesota Public Radio

Millions of Americans are leaving church. Are they also leaving their faith?   

Thirty years ago, about 90 percent of Americans identified as Christian. Today, that’s dropped to about 60 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of people without any religious affiliation at all continues to grow.

For some, the decision to leave is rooted in conflict and pain. But for most people, the reasons for leaving church are a lot more mundane.

MPR News guest host Kelly Gordon talks with a researcher and a pastor about the historic exodus from Christian congregations, what some have called the “great de-churching.”

In many ways, Lee Hawkins’ childhood in Maplewood was typical for families in the 1980s. He rode bikes, spent hours exploring the landscape, played rudimentary video football games. He and his sisters were raised by two loving parents and spent hours at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church each week.

But in other ways, Hawkins’ experience was unique. His family was Black in a mostly white suburb, part of the “integration generation.” He found community both with his peers at North St. Paul High School and at the barbershop he frequented in the Rondo area of St. Paul. And his parents, especially his dad, could be volatile, wrestling with the effects of intergenerational trauma that had roots in Alabama, where Hawkins’ father grew up.


North Star Journey Live: What Happened in Alabama? Ending cycles of trauma in Black America



Reconciling those two truths led Hawkins to dive into his family’s history. The result is his new podcast, What Happened in Alabama? It’s an honest look at what 400 years of unaddressed trauma can do in individuals, in families, in communities. It’s also a nuanced narrative of Hawkins’ own life. How could the father he idolized also be violent? How could he break the cycle of trauma so that future generations would know their history and be able to heal from it?

Hawkins lives in New York now, but he came home to Minnesota in May to talk with MPR News host Angela Davis about his journey for a special North Star Journey Live. On stage at the Minnesota History Center the night of May 22, before a crowd of several hundred people, they discussed the significance of exploring family history and intergenerational trauma, highlighting the lasting impact of Jim Crow on America and the power of truth-telling as we seek to understand our past and break cycles of trauma.













































You can listen to What Happened in Alabama? wherever you get your podcasts. Hawkins is also the author of the forthcoming book, “Nobody's Slave: How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free,” which is available for preorder now.

What Happened in Alabama? on Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-happened-in-alabama/id1743990592

Some people call Juneteenth our nation’s second Independence Day.  

It marks the date on June 19, 1865, when enslaved Black Americans in Texas finally learned of their freedom, after the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation.  

The day became a federal holiday in 2021, but Americans are still grappling with how to commemorate it.  

MPR News guest host Nina Moini talks with Kevin Lindsey, CEO of the Minnesota Humanities Center, about what the nonprofit organization is doing to mark Juneteenth and how better understanding the past can help address injustice today.  

Guests:  


Kevin Lindsey was hired as CEO of the Minnesota Humanities Center in 2019 after serving almost eight years as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. He’s also worked as an attorney in private practice and in the Ramsey County attorney’s office. 




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Last month, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, unveiled a new artificial intelligence advisory council — composed entirely of white men.

For some in the tech industry, it was no surprise. Women and people of color are still vastly under-represented in tech. Just one in three tech workers is a woman.

As AI becomes more accessible and widely adopted across industries, it raises questions about how these biases will play out. Will a technology written by a small group of people have the same biases as its creators?

MPR News guest host Chris Farrell and his guests talked about why the gender gap is so persistent and its implications for the tech industry and the effectiveness of AI.

Guests:  


Alex Hanna is director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), an independent organization that studies the development and impact of artificial intelligence.

Valerie Lockhart is founder of Minnesota Women in Tech and executive director of Minnesota Tech Network. She is the former executive director for Code Savvy, a Minnesota-based organization supporting inclusive computer science education across gender, racial and socioeconomic gaps.




Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.     

How often do you get out of your comfort zone each week? What about each month?  

Maybe learning something new is a goal for you in 2024. You’re never too old to try, and there are so many benefits — some of them unexpected. 

MPR News host Angela Davis talks about learning as an adult — whether it’s a language, a sport, an art or a skill. And having fun while we do it, because that’s important, too. 

Her guests are experts in adult enrichment. They’ve seen the benefits of adult learning first-hand in Bemidji, Grand Marais and St. Paul.   

Perinatal mood disorders — such as postpartum depression and anxiety — are the most common complications during and after pregnancy.

They impact one in five women. Yet 75 percent of those disorders go untreated. And they can have deadly consequences, such as suicide and overdoses.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talked about why perinatal mood disorders are so common, and the barriers that keep many new parents from seeking and receiving the help they need.