PAST, PRESENT, PUSHBACK

Between 1865 and 1950, nearly 6,500 Black people were lynched in the United States. Many of those deaths were public spectacles — advertised in newspapers, attended by crowds of thousands, with postcards made of the bodies and mailed as souvenirs. Congress introduced more than 200 anti-lynching bills over the course of a century. The Senate blocked every single one. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was finally signed into law in 2022 — making lynching a federal hate crime for the first time. It

In 2005, the NRA's then-president Marion Hammer drafted a bill in Florida. She brought it to two Florida state legislators who were both members of ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council. Governor Jeb Bush signed it. And within a year, 13 more states had passed nearly identical laws. Today Stand Your Ground exists in some form in more than half of U.S. states. And the research is clear: in Stand Your Ground states, homicides involving white shooters and Black victims are ruled justifia

Every American student is taught that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. That the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 ended slavery in America. That Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. But the full story is more complicated than that — and more important. The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to Confederate states where Lincoln had no actual authority to enforce it. It specifically exempted the border states where slavery continued legally. In practice, it did not immediately free a

Most Americans think Jim Crow ended in 1965 and America moved on. But the systems that followed — redlining, blockbusting, predatory lending, and the War on Drugs — were built on the same foundation with different paperwork. In this episode of Past Present Pushback, XO, AZ, and CDA sit in the man cave and go through the full documented history of all three systems. How Jim Crow was built and what it actually did. How redlining worked — the HOLC maps, the color-coded grades, and why over 95% of B

Most church-going Christians have been taught that tithing means giving 10% of your income to the church — and that if you don't, you're robbing God. But where did that actually come from? Abraham's tithe in Genesis was a one-time voluntary gift from war spoils — not his income. The three tithes in the Mosaic Law were paid in crops and livestock — not money. And the New Testament never repeats the 10% requirement. So how did we get here? And how did we get to a place where some of America's most

Most of us spend 90% of our time indoors. We breathe the air in our homes, cook on our pans, wear our clothes, and light our candles without thinking twice. But what if your nonstick pan is releasing forever chemicals into your food every time you cook? What if your polyester workout clothes are shedding microscopic plastic particles that end up in your bloodstream? What if the candle in your living room is releasing the same chemicals as secondhand cigarette smoke? In this episode, XO and CDA s

Most of us eat every single day without knowing what we're actually putting in our bodies. The chicken at the grocery store was likely raised in a facility where it never saw sunlight. The salmon on your plate may have been farmed, fed processed pellets, and dyed pink with synthetic pigment. The cooking oil in your cabinet is probably extracted with chemical solvents. Your tap water contains chlorine, fluoride, and potentially microplastics. And the label that says 'cage free' on the egg carton

The mics are live, the drinks are poured, and the energy in the studio is red hot. On this episode of Past Present Pushback, XO, AZ, and CDA break down the wildest NBA offseason in recent memory. From Giannis Antetokounmpo’s blockbuster trade to Miami to Jaylen Brown landing in Philly, we cover all the heavy-hitting roster shifts before diving into the biggest bombshell: 41-year-old LeBron James taking an $8 million pay cut to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers. In the second half, the panel goes

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. More than 2 million people are behind bars right now. And Black Americans — who make up 13% of the U.S. population — make up 37% of the prison population. One in three Black men will be incarcerated at some point in their lifetime. 77% of people in federal prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino. And Nixon's own domestic policy advisor admitted on the record that the War on Drugs was designed specifically to target Black com

Black men live on average 7 fewer years than white men. Black women die in childbirth at nearly three times the rate of white women — and that gap gets worse, not better, the more educated a Black woman is. Black Americans are 30% more likely to die from heart disease. They have the highest cancer death rate of any demographic. 51% of Black Americans believe the healthcare system was designed to hold them back. And the fear of police violence alone — not actual violence, just the anticipation of

On July 4, 2026, 18-year-old Nolan Xavier Wells went to Horn Island, Mississippi with a group of friends to celebrate Independence Day. He never came home. His body was found two days later. But now — on July 10 — new details are coming out that are raising serious questions. His father Elmore Wonsley said on CBS Mornings: 'Yes. I believe he was left behind. That's not his character.' His mother Christine says Snapchat messages were deleted from his phone — and since it hadn't been 24 hours, the

Every year on the 4th of July, America fires up the grills, lights the fireworks, and celebrates freedom. But most people don't know the real story behind the date — that the actual vote for independence was on July 2, not July 4. That most of the founders didn't sign the Declaration until August. That the man who wrote 'all men are created equal' owned 600 enslaved people over his lifetime. That a clause calling out the slave trade was removed from the Declaration before it was signed. And that