Ep 8: Maplewood, USA

When Lee’s parents moved to Maplewood in the mid ’70s, they were part of a wave of Black families integrating into majority white suburbs. They were seeking opportunity and safety, but were often met with hostility and racism. In this episode, Lee sits down with Christopher Lehman, a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University, to understand what pushed Black families to want to integrate white suburbs and how they were received. Later, Lee sits down with some childhood friends who grew up in Maplewood, to break down what it was really like being a Black boy in a white Minnesotan suburb in the 1980s and 1990s.