Every four years, the presidential election brings with it a perennial question about an essential voting bloc: Who will Black voters turn out for? 

Mother Jones video correspondent Garrison Hayes has spent months on the campaign trail talking to Black voters about how they see the goals and limits of their own political power. He paid special attention to Black Republicans and a new crop of Black supporters of former President Donald Trump. 

This week on Reveal, we hear from voters at the Republican National Convention, a graduate from a historically Black university whose star is rising on the right after appearing in a viral video hugging Trump at a Chick-fil-A, and a Republican organizing other Black voters to turn out for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Photos

All portraits were taken at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July 2024.

A woman, seen from behind, wears a red fedora and an oversize shirt that reads, "MAGA: Trump 2024." She holds a round sign with an illustrated image of Donald Trump.
P. Rae Easley. Credit: Wesaam Al-Badry
A woman sits at a table wearing an ivory-and-brown houndstooth-pattarned suit and a triple strand of pearls.
Michaelah Montgomery. Credit: Wesaam Al-Badry
A man wears a black suit with a red tie and a red fedora that says, "Make America Great Again." A small American flag is tucked in his armpit.
Vashon Tuncle. Credit: Wesaam Al-Badry
A woman wears a white cowboy hat, a navy suit, a brown belt with a large buckle, and a scarf with an American flag pattern.
Rochelle Brooks. Credit: Wesaam Al-Badry
A man sits at a table holding a cellphone. He wears a white cowboy hat, white polo shirt, and gold cross necklace.
Larry Wilcoxson. Credit: Wesaam Al-Badry

Dig Deeper

Watch: Garrison Hayes’ video on Black MAGA (Mother Jones)

Read: The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump, by Clay Cane

Read: The Loneliness of the Black Republican, by Leah Wright Rigueur

Credits

mother jones logo

Reporter: Garrison Hayes | Producer: Ashley Cleek | Editors: Jenny Casas and Jamilah King | Fact checkers: Sarah Szilagy and Ruth Murai | Production managers: Steven Rascón and Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Original score and sound design: Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda, with help from Claire Mullen | Post-production support: Claire Mullen and Missa Perron | Production support: James West and Sam Van Pykeren | Legal review: James Chadwick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Host: Al Letson

Support for Reveal is provided by the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, the Hellman Foundation, and by Reveal listeners.

Transcript

Reveal transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. Please be aware that the official record for Reveal’s radio stories is the audio.

Al Letson:Garrison.  
Garrison Hayes:Al.  
Al Letson:You’re amazing.  
Garrison Hayes:Don’t make me blush before we’re supposed to record together. This is crazy.  
Al Letson:Your blush would be beautiful, brother. It’s all good.  
Garrison Hayes:Thank you. Thank you.  
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. Today I am partnering with my dude, Garrison Hayes. He’s a video correspondent with Mother Jones. Hey, Garrison. How you doing, man?  
Garrison Hayes:I’m doing well, man. Thanks so much for having me.  
Al Letson:All right, so you’ve been working.  
Garrison Hayes:I just finished moderating a conversation for the NAACP here at the DNC.  
Al Letson:They’ve had you covering both conventions.  
Garrison Hayes:You’ve probably heard a lot of people talking about Black Republicans, but I spent all of the RNC talking to Black Republicans. They say that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes, and 2024 is doing a lot of rhyming with 1968.  
Al Letson:You’ve been all over the country covering this election. While I get to sit at home, which I got to say works out good for me.  
Garrison Hayes:I will take my licks. It’s actually been really, really great. The thing that I’ve been interested in this year is Black political power. I really set out to take it seriously wherever I found it. And the thing with this election specifically is that we know that Black voters will be critical to the outcome of this election, whatever that outcome may be.  
Al Letson:I sat down once with one of the architects of President Obama’s election and reelection campaign, and we were just talking about politics. And one of the things that he told me is that the Democrats cannot win without the Black vote. One of the things that he was saying is that Black people are essential, but no party actually treats them like they are essential.  
Garrison Hayes:To that exact point, that’s really my interest here. It feels like every four years, the media finally gains the courage or the interest to ask, well, what do Black people think? And I am often exhausted by that cadence. I think that Black people deserve to be covered in depth and in really wonky ways all the time, but here we are, and there’s an appetite for it now. And also think that there’s something really interesting happening, Al, where Black Republicans are having their moment in the sun.  
Speaker 1:If there is one thing you can count on every election cycle, it’s the countless headlines about Black voters shifting to Donald Trump. It’s the train that’s never late.  
Speaker 2:The vast majority of Black voters in the US reliably vote Democrat, but Republicans have been making gains specifically among Black men. That’s according to a recent NAACP poll that found one in four under-50 support Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.  
Speaker 3:The recent New York Times Siena poll shows 23% support among Black voters for former President Trump. That’s up 19 points.  
Speaker 4:Hinting at their growing disaffection with the Democratic Party.  
Garrison Hayes:Some polls predict that this year, more Black people will vote for the Republican Party than have in decades. For as long as I can remember, Black Republicans have been characterized as, or at the very least perceived to be sellouts, Black folks who want to be white folks, or are at least more interested in the approval of white folks. That perception of Black Republicans has come up time and time again in my reporting. But truthfully as a Black man, I haven’t had to lean on reporting to see that. That’s been a part of the discourse for my entire life. I think about the Key and Peele skit.  
Speaker 5:I think Black Republicans are pretty cool, not to mention very diverse.  
Speaker 6:There we go. There we go.  
Speaker 5:Excuse me, gentlemen. Sorry to interrupt. Someone’s white wife is here to pick them up.  
Garrison Hayes:I think about Braxton Hartnabrig from the Jamie Foxx Show.  
Speaker 7:Mr. DJ, break me off something proper.  
Garrison Hayes:In all of these characters who show up in specific ways, Carlton Banks from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  
Speaker 8:Hip-hop flashcards?  
Speaker 9:I made them myself. I’ve been cramming all night.  
Garrison Hayes:These are Black Republican caricatures, the kind of uppity, preppy, snooty kind of Black person who doesn’t have time to engage with the hip-hop culture. That’s the idea and that’s the vibe.  
Al Letson:And those stereotypes of Black Republicans are so old, from years ago. I feel like when I was younger, and admittedly that was a bit ago, Black Republicans were fiscally conservative, or they were the Booker T. Washington bootstrappers who were like, “I don’t need white people to give me my freedom,” and that was all before Donald Trump. I feel like the question for today’s Black Republicans, at least the questions I have, is how can they support this candidate with his long history of racism, how he speaks about Black people, the Blacks and Black jobs, et cetera? Just this election cycle, he promoted the racist and false narrative that Haitian migrants are eating people’s pets. So how do Black Republicans justify supporting him?  
Garrison Hayes:That was one of my curiosities as well. How do these Black people find themselves in Trump’s orbit? So I went and talked to so many of these voters. Let’s see. Make sure this thing good. Test, test, test. Okay, good. We’re going now. I’ve seen you online talking about why Black people should support Donald Trump specifically and be conservatives more broadly. Is that correct?  
Speaker 10:Correct.  
Garrison Hayes:And can you tell me why? Make the case for why a Black person-  
Speaker 10:Sure.  
Garrison Hayes:… should support Donald Trump specifically? Why should Black people support the Republican ticket and Donald Trump specifically?  
Speaker 11:That’s a good question.  
Garrison Hayes:Okay, so let’s start with the Trump is a racist issue. There are two basic justifications I heard for how Black Trump supporters respond to this question. One is like the Uno reverse card where they say Trump and the Republican Party aren’t racist. It’s the Democrats who are the real racists.  
Speaker 11:If a Black person said, “Well, pastor, Donald Trump is racist, the Republican Party is racist,” well, let’s play that theme out throughout history. Let’s look at who was the party of slavery, who was the party of Jim Crow, who was the party of the slave cults. Well, those are Democrats.  
Al Letson:I have heard this so many times before, and it is intellectually dishonest. It’s playing fast and loose with history. It ignores the fact that the parties flipped around the Civil Rights Act of 1964, where the Republican Party specifically appealed to racist and white supremacists in the south, the old southern strategy, to court white voters from the Democratic Party.  
Garrison Hayes:That’s exactly it. But the other justification I heard a lot is this idea that racism, or race even, isn’t at the center of their decision making process  
Speaker 12:When it’s come to politics. What I try to tell people, it doesn’t matter what people are racist or not. It’s a transactional thing. You want something from me. I want something from you. And what’s happening right now, we are not demanding anything for our votes. All they got to do is tell us, “We love you and the Republicans hate you. And your mama voted for us.” And what I’m trying to tell people and my approach to politics is that, look, I don’t care about all that.  
Garrison Hayes:Both of these arguments map well onto this recent survey that I read. It’s called the Black Values Survey. It was done by these three polling groups who interviewed almost 3000 registered and unregistered Black voters across the country. In it, they defined this cluster of the Black electorate that they call the race neutral conservative. These Black folks don’t place the same emphasis or importance on racism or racial solidarity for that matter. They’re more likely to focus on individual centered issues like cost of living and in inflation and entrepreneurship. The idea within the Black community that Black people shouldn’t focus on race so much isn’t new, but if polling is correct, this segment of Black voters are growing.  
Al Letson:Okay, so what are they looking at? Or what’s drawing their support to Trump?  
Garrison Hayes:Well, in my reporting, I heard a lot of classic Republican talking points out. A lot of folks had strong feelings about abortion.  
Speaker 13:What has turned me somewhere else is the fact that every cycle, you’re telling me that I need to get an abortion. Kamala Harris only showed up to my HBCU to talk about abortion. I think it’s really crazy how they’ve made Black women the face of abortion and how they act like abortion is something that Black women need in order to survive. I don’t think it’s that hard to not have sex.  
Garrison Hayes:There are also Black voters who said Trump is their candidate because they want less government involvement, this idea that government assistance is to blame for the Black community’s problems.  
Speaker 14:That’s one reason why I’m pro-Trump and I’m a conservative, is because I truly believe in the individualistic approach to the problems that we see within Black community or in America as a whole.  
Garrison Hayes:And a couple of people told me that they were compelled by Trump’s religious appeal, like the hand of God on Trump’s life.  
Speaker 15:You can’t deny the power of God on this man’s life. You can’t deny that God protected him. Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved him for such a time as this? Could it be?  
Garrison Hayes:I also heard this really interesting argument that Trump is an honest hustler, basically a con man with a heart of gold, like a person who doesn’t pay taxes because he says the system is rigged.  
Al Letson:A con man with a heart of gold is still a con man.  
Garrison Hayes:Yeah. But for some Black Republicans I’ve talked to, it really resonates with them.  
Speaker 16:This is a guy who’s not trying to scam me. And to the extent that he is hustling, it’s a hustle that it’s on my frequency, that I can understand, that I can relate to. And so there’s a sort of a comfort with him as a personality.  
Garrison Hayes:Okay. So beyond the folks I spoke with who are drawn to Trump’s personality or disillusioned by the Democratic Party, I also spoke to Black Republicans and conservatives who fit into a different camp, people who are trying to do some deep institutional work to make the Republican Party a political home for Black people.  
Whitley Yates:When you look at the Republican Party and you don’t see people that look like you and you want to be that change, it’s incumbent upon you to come alongside them to be the change, to speak truth to power.  
Garrison Hayes:I spoke with a woman named Whitley Yates. I met her when I was at the Republican National Convention this summer. It’s a little loud because we talked on a street in Milwaukee. Whitley is the director of diversity for the Indiana Republican Party.  
Whitley Yates:Only director of diversity in the entire Republican Party in the whole country, the only one.  
Garrison Hayes:Basically her job is to run training programs and seminars to bring new kinds of people into the Republican Party. Ironically, she was hired shortly before a wave of Republican bills across the country, tried and succeeded in some places to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI programs.  
Whitley Yates:Because diversity has become a dirty word in politics, specifically on the right.  
Garrison Hayes:So I asked Whitley how she even does her job, and Whitley told me that she spends a lot of her time trying to get her colleagues to have a more expansive view of what diversity means beyond race.  
Whitley Yates:When I began talking about diversity and I would go to these rural counties, I would sit and ask their leadership, are there women at the table? Are there blue-collar workers at the table, or are there white-collar workers, or is it just farmers? Are there people who grew up with a different socioeconomic status than you at the table?  
Garrison Hayes:Whitley sees this as her role as a Black woman in the Republican Party. It’s not just that no one else is going to do, it’s her ability to have these conversations and to be in these rooms. That gives her power.  
Whitley Yates:We can’t have Black political power if we don’t have Black people on the right. That means that if everyone’s on the left, we would only have power when the left is in power. That’s not political power. That’s definitely not Black political power.  
Al Letson:That doesn’t make sense to me because basically what she’s advocating for is pulling Black people away to the Republican side so that there’s a Black voting bloc in each party. But the thing is that that would just dilute the Black vote on the Democratic side, and you wouldn’t have enough Black people in the Republican Party to change policies or to advocate for different directions. I think going off of what she’s saying, the goal then would be to divest from the two-party system.  
Garrison Hayes:I think you’re right, that the problem is the two-party system. But in a way, I understand Whitley’s point as well. If Black people are only able to find a political home on the left or in the Democratic Party, they run the risk of being taken for granted by that party. On the other hand, being a member of the Republican Party isn’t an option for many Black voters because of the party’s stances on civil rights and voting rights and progress in general. Martin Luther King Jr. actually warned all of us about this decades ago.  
Martin Luther King Jr.:I see trends and developments which will reveal that unless the liberals of the Republican Party play a much more decisive role in leadership positions, this will become a white man’s party. And I think this would be tragic for the Republican Party, as well as tragic for the nation.  
Garrison Hayes:So I think the question becomes, is it possible for Black people to grow political power on the right? What does it look like when a Black person takes up that mantle and tries to organize inside the Republican Party, especially in states where the margins are razor thin, states like Georgia?  
Michaelah Montg…:If y’all need anybody to knock doors, make phone calls, wave signs, get people out to the polls, call me a conservative.  
Garrison Hayes:I spent time with one Trump supporter out of Atlanta, Michaelah Montgomery. She’s really stepped into the limelight this election. She’s been speaking to Black voters on behalf of Trump.  
Michaelah Montg…:I’m the best person when it comes to Black engagement in the Black community, and nobody needs this message more than my folks. So do I care for real? Are y’all with us for real?  
Al Letson:So up next, we go to Atlanta.  
Garrison Hayes:My hometown, the A.  
Al Letson:Welcome to Atlanta where the players play to spend some time with Michaelah, one of the GOP’s rising stars.  
Michaelah Montg…:They love me. They love me. They really love me.  
Al Letson:You’re listening to Reveal.  
Al Letson:From The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson. This hour I’m sitting with Garrison Hayes, a reporter and video correspondent with Mother Jones, who’s been covering the election and spending a lot of time with Black Trump supporters. So Garrison, that reporting has taken you to Atlanta a lot, right?  
Garrison Hayes:It’s actually really hard to count how many times I’ve been to Atlanta this year, but it’s really easy for me. I was born and raised in Atlanta on the south side, southwest Atlanta, until I turned four. And so whenever I introduce myself, I tell people that I’m Atlanta, Georgia born, bred and cornbread fed. That’s me.  
Al Letson:I love Atlanta. I spent a lot of my wayward youth there.  
Garrison Hayes:It’s a really good place to be wayward and young. And separate from that, as a reporter, I have kept a close eye on Atlanta ever since Joe Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes because the city and the metropolitan area more broadly were key to that victory. And Atlanta is key to this election too. In a lot of ways, all roads lead to and through that city.  
Speaker 17:Let the media frenzy begin. National, international, and even podcast programs are setting up for tomorrow’s presidential debate here in Atlanta.  
Garrison Hayes:Of course, the first presidential debate that pushed Joe Biden to drop out of the race, that was in Atlanta. Kamala Harris has been to Atlanta multiple times. When she became the nominee, Atlanta’s where she held her very first rally.  
Kamala Harris:I’m so happy to be here, Atlanta.  
Al Letson:With Atlanta’s very own Quavo, and, of course, Megan Thee Stallion.  
Megan Thee Stallion:We’re about to make history with the first female president. The first Black female president. Let’s get this done, hotties. Hotties for Harris.  
Garrison Hayes:The Trump campaign is constantly looping through Atlanta and Georgia more broadly doing fundraising and holding rallies.  
Donald Trump:And thank you to Atlanta. I’m thrilled to be back in the great state of Georgia. I love Georgia.  
Garrison Hayes:So let’s go back to April. A little reminder, Biden was still in the race at the time, and Trump was about to stand trial in New York City, and we were all buying those special glasses for the eclipse. I don’t know if you remember that, Al. So around this time, Trump is on his way to a fundraiser and stops at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta.  
Al Letson:Okay, so I totally remember this video.  
Donald Trump:Thank you very much. So we’ll order 30 milkshakes.  
Garrison Hayes:Lots of people have their phones out to record. Fox News is actually livestreaming it. Trump orders a bunch of milkshakes for everyone, then he makes his rounds and starts shaking hands.  
Donald Trump:It is, it’s a great franchise. The owner is a great man who is a member of one of my clubs, and he’s fantastic. And…  
Garrison Hayes:It’s important to note that this particular Chick-fil-A is in Vine City. It’s just steps away from the campuses of a few HBCUs. Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta University, what’s known as the Atlanta University Center, the AUC. And when Trump visits this Chick-fil-A, there’s a big group of Black students hoping to meet him. And there’s one woman who really stands out. She actually yells over a few Secret Service agents to get Trump’s attention.  
Michaelah Montg…:I put campuses together. So all these HBCU students that you see here, brought them here to meet you, Mr. President.  
Donald Trump:Oh, thank you.  
Garrison Hayes:He turns around to listen to her.  
Michaelah Montg…:I don’t care what the media tells you Mr. Trump-  
Donald Trump:Thank you very much.  
Michaelah Montg…:We support you.  
Speaker 8:We love you.  
Donald Trump:Let me give you a hug. [inaudible 00:03:55].  
Michaelah Montg…:Can we take a photo?  
Donald Trump:Oh, that’s so nice. Thank you.  
Michaelah Montg…:Thank you. Tell my mama I made it.  
Garrison Hayes:In this moment of a Black woman in Atlanta, hugging Donald Trump in a fast food restaurant goes viral.  
Speaker 18:So an unforgettable moment on the campaign trail for one voter who got a big hug from Trump at an Atlanta Chick-fil-A. Michaelah, I’ve been waiting for this interview all morning.  
Garrison Hayes:It’s everywhere. Everyone has something to say about it.  
Speaker 19:Just because one Black person at a fast food restaurant says nice things about him, that doesn’t mean that the rest of Black people support him.  
Speaker 20:Anytime Donald Trump does anything with Black people, we should just automatically assume it’s fake.  
Garrison Hayes:And this woman, Michaelah Montgomery, is instantly invited onto conservative talk shows.  
Speaker 212:Hey, Michaelah.  
Michaelah Montg…:Hello. Hello. Good morning.  
Speaker 21:Hello. Good morning. Thanks for coming on. You’re an Atlanta voter.  
Speaker 22:Michaelah Montgomery is the state director of Blexit, Georgia. You’re famous now.  
Speaker 23:Joining me now is the woman from that interaction, Michaelah Montgomery, founder of Conserve the Culture. Michaelah, why did you want your photo taken with Donald Trump that day?  
Michaelah Montg…:Well, above all else, he was our president, the leader of the free world. So I don’t know who as a person who respects our offices, wouldn’t take the opportunity to take a picture with the president.  
Speaker 24:So you Chick-fil-A bae?  
Michaelah Montg…:I guess so.  
Garrison Hayes:And she uses those media appearances to make the case for why she as a Black woman will be voting for Trump.  
Michaelah Montg…:Absolutely. I think Trump is the best candidate that we have out right now. And considering that I’ve lived through a Trump presidency and a Biden presidency, if I had the option of staying the way things are or going back to the way things were, I’m definitely ready to make America great again.  
Garrison Hayes:I wanted to learn about her, this person who had suddenly found themselves in the spotlight and find out what she was planning to do with all of this attention.  
Al Letson:All right, brother, take it away. Let’s go meet Michaelah.  
Garrison Hayes:I ended up interviewing Michaelah several times throughout the summer and into this fall.  
 It sounds like you had been having a busy day.  
Michaelah Montg…:Man.  
Garrison Hayes:Maybe not just a busy day, maybe a busy life.  
Michaelah Montg…:Busy, busy bees.  
Garrison Hayes:Busy time.  
Michaelah Montg…:Very much so.  
Garrison Hayes:Just a few days before this she’d driven down to Florida to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago with a group of Black students and friends.  
Michaelah Montg…:I had a private dinner with President Trump, and just finally having a seat at the table in rooms that I used to dream about.  
Garrison Hayes:Michaelah grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her parents were from Louisiana.  
Michaelah Montg…:My parents were there and experienced segregated bathrooms. My dad went to a segregated school. My parents are a part of the collective who believe that the Democrats are for us.  
Garrison Hayes:So her parents are Democrats, but other political ideas were present throughout her childhood. Michaelah and her dad watched conservative talk shows together. She says her dad disagreed with their politics, but he loved to watch the debate.  
Michaelah Montg…:So they don’t support who I support, but they support me and they love what I’m doing.  
Garrison Hayes:In high school, Michaelah decided she wanted to go to an HBCU and she ended up at Clark Atlanta University.  
 Describe Clark Atlanta for a person who’s never been there.  
Michaelah Montg…:It’s literally heaven for Black people. It’s like heaven on earth. It’s everything that you’ve heard. It’s everything that you think, it’s everything that you want it to be like.  
Garrison Hayes:And for Michaelah, it really was everything. She studied poli sci. She took classes in government. She was on the debate team.  
Michaelah Montg…:Not only was I on the debate team, but I went undefeated. So let’s start there.  
Garrison Hayes:So yes, let’s start there. Around 2017, Michaelah is still in college. She says she’s a registered independent, and the main thing she wants is an in to Atlanta politics.  
Michaelah Montg…:I wanted to see the processes. I wanted to understand what it took to be a mayor, what it took to run a campaign.  
Garrison Hayes:And she gets her chance one night at a party. She says that she meets someone who knows someone who convinces her to volunteer for Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic candidate for mayor of Atlanta.  
Michaelah Montg…:The only stipulation I had was that you guys get me next to the candidate.  
Garrison Hayes:She’s not invested in the goals of the Keisha Lance Bottoms campaign, she’s really there to learn. But there were some things that Michaelah liked about Lance Bottoms.  
Michaelah Montg…:I love that she was a Black woman and HBCU grad. I love that she advocated for adoption, me being an adoptee. I love how people would come up to her and tell her their different concerns or whatever, and she would whip out a notepad and take these notes.  
Garrison Hayes:But Michaelah was sussing out her options. At the same time, she was also interning for the GAGOP, the Georgia Republican Party. And she says that led to some questions from the Black people in her life.  
Michaelah Montg…:And the one thing that a lot of people would tell me when they learned that I accepted my internship with the GAGOP was that they don’t care about us. And I’ve seen how the Democratic Party basically expects your vote. They don’t really work for it, and I was really interested to see what the Republican Party had to offer. And the Republicans always showed up for me.  
Garrison Hayes:Michaelah says the Republicans poured resources into her. They trained her on how to organize, how to bring people into the party.  
Michaelah Montg…:They taught me playbooks. They taught me strategy. They gave me media training. The Republican Party did a whole lot of investing into me before they even knew what the hell it is that I wanted to do.  
Garrison Hayes:She says whenever she’s asked a party or individual Republicans for money or resources, they’ve supported her.  
Michaelah Montg…:I can call a Republican and say, “I need 300 notebooks for this school”, and a lot of times they’ll just buy it. They’re not going to ask me to ask this person. They’re not going to ask me to fundraise. They’re just going to go buy it.  
Garrison Hayes:And when she started her own organization called Conserve the Culture to mobilize young Black voters for Republican candidates, the party gave her money for her events.  
Michaelah Montg…:I don’t get any questions. I don’t get any backlash. It’s just like, “Okay, Chaelah, let’s do it.”  
Garrison Hayes:For three years, Michaelah is pretty immersed in politics. And then…  
Michaelah Montg…:Shoo, what happened next?  
Garrison Hayes:It’s 2020.  
Michaelah Montg…:I got pregnant, that’s what the hell happened. I got pregnant and then Covid.  
Garrison Hayes:The pandemic hits. She just had a baby. So she gets a job as a bottle girl at a club.  
Michaelah Montg…:I was making the most money that I had ever made in life. I never forgot my political dreams, but I have a baby.  
Garrison Hayes:She’s making connections this time in Atlanta’s nightlife scene. Then around 2022, 2023, she takes those connections combined with her past political contacts, and she starts organizing again, appealing to Black students who might be curious about the Republican Party.  
Michaelah Montg…:I have a militia now because of the Republican Party, I am so organized and my retention is so high because of the Republican Party.  
Garrison Hayes:And then Chick-fil-A happens. From there, the rest is history. And all of this attention actually gives her another chance to share the spotlight with Trump. In August, she gets invited to speak at one of his rallies.  
Michaelah Montg…:My name is Michaelah Montgomery. A lot of you guys know me as the girl from Chick-fil-A, but I am so much more than that.  
Garrison Hayes:It was the biggest stage she’d ever been on. It was the most people she’d ever spoken to, and she used this opportunity to make the case to Black people about why they should vote for Donald Trump.  
Michaelah Montg…:Now, why don’t we jump right into it? See, as a young single mother, I can tell y’all that rent is too damn high.  
Garrison Hayes:She told me that she’d only been given three minutes, but she decided to talk for nine.  
Michaelah Montg…:We also did a poll, and 80% of us Black Americans are not happy with the current state of the economy. So I’m going to need 80% of y’all to vote accordingly in November.  
Garrison Hayes:She hit a bunch of the conservative talking points, including some of the racist dog whistles from Trump’s campaign.  
Michaelah Montg…:A few days ago, President Trump said he didn’t know Vice President Harris was a Black woman. I’m trying to figure out what all the outrage is about, because she’s only Black when it’s time to get elected. Did I lie?  
Garrison Hayes:The crowd loves her.  
Michaelah Montg…:They love me, they love me, they really love me.  
Garrison Hayes:She gathers her speech, smiling this huge smile, hands raised as folks applaud her for quite some time, and then she walks off. Then something unexpected happens. Trump calls Michaelah back up on stage.  
Donald Trump:Hey, Michaelah, I know you spoke. Just come up for a second. Come here.  
Garrison Hayes:This time he’s retelling the story of how they met.  
Donald Trump:I walked into… I don’t know what the hell restaurant it was, but I walked into this restaurant.  
Garrison Hayes:And the interesting thing is that suddenly the details are different.  
Donald Trump:I walked in, she’s behind the counter, and she didn’t know I was coming. And she goes, “It’s President Trump.” She looks at me. “It’s President Trump. You saved my college.”  
Garrison Hayes:In Trump’s version, Michaelah is an employee at Chick-fil-A, who was only there because she was at work. She’s not a conservative community organizer or a woman with agency and political aspirations.  
Donald Trump:She gave me a kiss. I said, “I think I’m never going back home to the first lady.”  
Garrison Hayes:And while this may feel insignificant, Trump meets hundreds if not thousands of people a week. So what if he mixes up a couple of details? But to me, Trump’s version of the story turned Michaelah from a savvy, politically engaged person into someone plucked from fast food obscurity. So I asked her about it.  
 I have one more question for you and it’s about… Something I wanted to ask you last time. I met up with Michaelah at this television studio in Atlanta. She’s just gotten done debating with Democrats about the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It kind of bothered me when Trump framed it as you-  
Michaelah Montg…:Oh, as I was working there?  
Garrison Hayes:… working there. And so how do you feel about him taking your credit away in that moment?  
 It’s hard to hear, but she says, “You and me both.” And the look on her face told me that she had at the very least thought about Trump’s retelling of her story before I asked her about it.  
Michaelah Montg…:No, I don’t feel like my credit was being taken away. I don’t like how the story is being reiterated, but we all misspeak. So there’s that. And I always have the opportunity to tell people, “I never worked at Chick-fil-A.” That is what it is, his recollection is his recollection. But at the end of the day, he makes sure to tell everybody that I was there and that he thought I was very, very intelligent, that I stood out to him and that I did bring all of those people there.  
Garrison Hayes:After her speech in August, Michaelah’s rise has only continued, but not without consequence. She says she’s gotten calls from some of the students that she works with, maybe about 75 of them, who told her that after her Trump rally speech, they no longer want to work with her. But she says she’s not fazed.  
 Every time we’ve spoken Michaelah’s been all in for Trump. No questions, no concerns. She believes that he will be elected and that his presidency will be good for her. She’s actually hoping for a position in Trump’s White House. And from there, she hopes to one day run for national office.  
 In a way, it would be the full lifecycle of her political dreams from watching political television with her father to being on TV with a former president. From being a part of a campaign to one day, maybe being the candidate herself. Up next. How long have you been a Republican?  
Eugene Craig III:Lifelong. I’ve been Republican my entire life. You lose somebody like me, you lost a lot.  
Al Letson:The Black Republicans who are trying to create a political future without Trump. That’s coming up after the break. You’re listening to Reveal.  
Al Letson:From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I’m Al Letson and I’m here with Garrison Hayes, Mother Jones video correspondent. Garrison.  
Garrison Hayes:What’s up Al? Still here. Still hanging out.  
Al Letson:Well, thank you for hanging out. So, so far we’ve spent a lot of time with the MAGA side of the Republican Party; Black voters who are all in for Trump.  
Garrison Hayes:Yes, that’s right. As you know, my original mission was to take Black political power seriously, particularly on the right, but if you only focus on the Black MAGA folks, you miss a really active group of people who stand just outside of that frame. Black Republicans are dynamic. There are plenty who have decided that they can’t support Donald Trump, but also see the GOP as their political home. I wanted to see what those Black Republicans were thinking about this election and the future of their party.  
 How long have you been a Republican?  
Eugene Craig III:Lifelong. I registered to vote at 17 and I’ve been Republican my entire life. You lose somebody like me, you lost a lot.  
Garrison Hayes:That’s Eugene Craig III. He’s in his early 30s. He’s a consultant. He made a splash in the news in 2015 when he launched the Ready for Kanye PAC.  
Eugene Craig III:My argument is this, a party that has space for Donald Trump and the lunacy that comes with that has space for somebody like Kanye West.  
Al Letson:Clearly, like a lot of our politics today, and not just on the right, but just politics in general, clearly he’s into trolling.  
Garrison Hayes:Yeah, I think that’s right. I think that’s true.  
Eugene Craig III:And look, it was a troll to a degree and I apologize. Sorry guys. I may be the reason Kanye actually did mess around and run for president eventually. But the thing is this, that just showed where the Republican Party was at that time.  
Garrison Hayes:But he’s a Republican’s Republican. He’s dyed in the wool.  
Eugene Craig III:I worked races from presidential on down to city council, was an adviser of Rand Paul’s campaign in 2016.  
Garrison Hayes:He also used to be the vice chair of the Maryland Republican Party. So he had a pretty serious leadership position before he was even 30 years old. But this election, Eugene’s made a bold move. He’s founded a PAC called Black Republicans for Harris.  
Eugene Craig III:At this point in time, I am one of those that’s willing to cross over and stand for our country, willing to cross over and stand for my community, willing to cross over and do what’s necessary to defeat Donald Trump. And so out of that came Black Republicans for Harris.  
Garrison Hayes:He’s raising money and really trying to target Black Republicans in swing states to get them to vote for Kamala Harris.  
Eugene Craig III:And we’re going to make sure she gets across the finish line and that Black Republicans are a big part of that margin of victory.  
Al Letson:Okay. Okay. So I’m a little confused. How did Eugene go from being a lifelong Republican to actively campaigning against his party?  
Garrison Hayes:Yeah, it’s a little confounding, and that transition has been a bit gradual for him. But Eugene is just playing out a flashier version of what he says is pretty common for Black Republicans. He calls this the life cycle of the Black Republican. It starts with a Black voter newly joining the party.  
Eugene Craig III:I get a baby Black Republican. Oh my gosh, I’m Black Republican, see me.  
Garrison Hayes:And white Republicans see them as novel, special.  
Eugene Craig III:Oh my gosh, we got us a Black person, a young Black person, and they believe what we believe.  
Garrison Hayes:They grow in the party.  
Eugene Craig III:And everything’s cool until there’s a life issue.  
Garrison Hayes:Something major.  
Eugene Craig III:Something that happens with that cross section of being Black and being Republican, and you come in that fork in the road, right?  
Garrison Hayes:Eugene says there were a few of those moments for him, but the biggest was in 2015. He was still the vice chair of the Maryland Republican Party making his way up the ranks.  
Eugene Craig III:When Freddie Gray happened, right, when the Freddie Gray situation happened in Baltimore …  
Garrison Hayes:Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who was arrested and beaten by the police in Baltimore, Maryland. He died from his injuries a week later. Eugene joined thousands of others in the streets to protest, and his activism angered a lot of his white Republican colleagues.  
Eugene Craig III:There were a lot of Republicans that were not just perturbed, they were upset, they were bewildered, they were dumbfounded. They wanted me gone. They wanted my head. For the fact that I would stand up and speak loud and proud on behalf of Freddie Gray and other Black men, Black people, Black women, Black children that have suffered abuse at the hand of police.  
Garrison Hayes:Eugene explains that these fork-in-the-road moments are a gauge for whether a Black Republican’s political identity or racial identity is more important.  
Eugene Craig III:Typically, when you have a situation like that, one of two things happens. Either the person makes the determination that being in this party is more important than whatever their identity is, or it becomes, “Hey, I am who I am. This is just something I’m a part of.”  
Garrison Hayes:For Eugene, his Blackness is central to who he is, and he wasn’t going to compromise that. So when his term with the Maryland Republican Party ended, he didn’t run again.  
Eugene Craig III:I’m a Republican, but I’m an American first and I’m a Black person above that, which is interesting to some folk because all some people could see is party. But in my lexicon it becomes, “Hey, I was born Black. I’m going to die Black.” So that’s first things first, right?  
Garrison Hayes:Again, this is around 2015. Donald Trump was campaigning for the Republican nomination and for Eugene, this was another one of those fork-in-the-road moments where he had to weigh his identity as a Black man and his fidelity to the Republican Party.  
 Eugene has always believed that Trump is a racist. When we spoke, he pointed back to the 1970s when Trump and his father were sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent to Black tenants in their apartment buildings. One of their employees even testified that he had been instructed to mark rental applications from Black people with the letter C. C as in colored. This was meant to signal who not to rent to. So Eugene wouldn’t vote for Trump in 2016, and he didn’t vote for him in 2020.  
Al Letson:I mean, in 2016, you could look at the Republican Party and think about the MAGA wing of the party, but now MAGA has taken over the entire party and I don’t know, I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that it’s a wing. It feels like it is the thing.  
Garrison Hayes:Eugene still sees the Republican Party as his political home. He just doesn’t like his new roommates, and I think it actually explains why he’s campaigning for Harris. The urgency behind that choice is driven by his worries about what another Trump administration would look like. He says, just look at Trump’s first term, the power he was able to wield. Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court, and that shifted the court to the right. Eugene referenced Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, a Black man who was recently executed in Missouri after the Supreme Court rejected a request to delay his execution  
Eugene Craig III:Because they couldn’t find a fourth vote in the Supreme Court to stay the execution. We see rules being tossed out. We see affirmative action has been tossed out there. They’re coming back again for the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. So there’s a real actual cost, a real-life cost, forever cost to elections, right?  
Garrison Hayes:Eugene worries that there will be fewer checks on Trump in a second term. He points to the plans outlined by former Trump officials in Project 2025, and he actually mentioned something that I hadn’t considered before.  
Eugene Craig III:When Donald Trump in Project 2025 says they want to get rid of Department of Education, they mean it. But what does that mean, right? Upwards of 80 plus percent of HBCU students go to attend college with some level of support from the Department of Education, whether it be a Pell Grant or a government subsidized [inaudible 00:08:50] XYZ. Well, what do you think happens if the Department of Education is wiped out? So when some of these “Black Republicans” look at me and say, “Hey, I supported Donald Trump, but I also love HBCUs.” I just say, “Hey, you’re full of it.”  
Al Letson:So what does Eugene make of his fellow Black Republicans who have continued to support Trump?  
Garrison Hayes:He doesn’t have a very high opinion of them. He thinks most of them are grifters, and this term has come up a few times in my reporting. A grifter is someone who pretends to believe something or be someone for money. And listen, it’s not unusual for people to go into politics to make a buck and a name for themselves. That’s normal. But in this context, Eugene believes some Black Trump supporters are leveraging their identity as Black people to justify racist policies and ideas, and they’re being rewarded for it.  
Eugene Craig III:Their whole thing is either validating some of the worst parts of the racist MAGA movement and making a buck off of it, and they’ll say, “Of course, this XYZ thing that is very blatantly and clearly racist isn’t racist, and it’s not racist because I’m a Black guy telling you that you shouldn’t feel racist for saying or doing it.”  
Garrison Hayes:Now, to be clear, Eugene doesn’t think this applies to all Black Trump supporters. He knows that there are people who work in the government who are civil servants to their core. They’ve worked in every administration from George H.W. Bush on down.  
Eugene Craig III:They don’t agree with Trump. It’s not necessarily their job to step out and stand out and speak out against it. So those people do exist. But for the overwhelming majority of these folk, they absolutely are grifters and figuring out what they can get out of this and on to the next.  
Garrison Hayes:And in talking with Eugene, I thought about the Black Trump supporters who I spent so much time with, especially Michaelah Montgomery.  
Al Letson:I mean, when you sat down with Michaelah, did you ask her about being a grifter?  
Garrison Hayes:Yes. In my first interview with her, I asked Michaelah about this suspicion that some folks have that Black Trump supporters are grifters, and she immediately knew what I was talking about.  
Michaelah Montg…:Absolutely.  
Garrison Hayes:And you’re saying absolutely. So how …  
Michaelah Montg…:I would not deny the fact that that exists.  
Garrison Hayes:Why shouldn’t I believe that that’s you, is my question. I’m looking at you here. You’re smart, you’re Black.  
Michaelah Montg…:Baby, I could be living an entirely different life if I was willing to get up and say that racism doesn’t exist. If I was ready to get up and say that we need to stop complaining about slavery. I’m not that girl. I’m the one who recognizes that there are issues, but I’m like, “Hey, we can move past this.” However, one thing that I hope you’ve noticed throughout this entire interview is I identify as a conservative. I don’t identify as a Republican, for that very reason. Because in order to get to a certain space, I guess in the Republican Party, you do have to make the racist white people comfortable, and I’m not here to make them comfortable at all.  
Garrison Hayes:Like I said, that was from our first conversation, and I interviewed Michaelah multiple times, but over the summer, as her profile grew, I watched her repeat some Trump’s most racist comments; denying Kamala Harris racial identity, or accusing Haitians of eating dogs and cats, language that crossed the red line for others, but not for her.  
 So in our final conversation, I wanted to ask if she could foresee a moment, like what happened to Eugene, where her political identity came into conflict with her racial identity, her values.  
 And so I think about Colin Powell, rest in peace, how he left the party after January 6th, after the January 6th insurrection that was just kind of beyond the pale for him. Is there a red line for you? Maybe you don’t know what it is yet, but what is it and how will you know if he ever crosses that red line?  
Michaelah Montg…:The red line? He would literally have to call me a (bleep). Like it would have-  
Garrison Hayes:You specifically?  
Michaelah Montg…:It would have to, yes, me specifically, because as a Black person, Garrison, you know that there’s Black people and then there’s (bleep).  
Garrison Hayes:I don’t know that.  
Michaelah Montg…:And even Black people don’t want to be around (bleep). So Trump would literally have to be like, “Stupid (bleep).” The only way I’d be like, “Dang, man. No way. Not you, you too.”  
Al Letson:Hearing that disturbs me so much. It disturbs me so much on a couple different levels. One, because saying that thing out loud that she said about Black people know there are Black people and there are N-words. I’d heard that in the community before, but I don’t think I heard it popularized until a bit with Chris Rock where he talked about it. And I hate it when he said it then, and I hate it now, because at the end of the day, in the eyes of racists, we’re all the N. There are no Black people. There are no difference. And the idea that you can somehow single yourself out and away from racist treatment by calling somebody that looks like you a derogatory name, it’s not going to save you. And so it drives me crazy hearing her say that.  
Garrison Hayes:Yeah, that was probably the most shocking conversation I had over the last year with a Black conservative or Republican. It made me uncomfortable. But Michaelah’s reaction was also profoundly clarifying. As a reporter, you can’t know what’s in someone’s heart. You can just know what they tell you. And while I recognize that just weeks before the election, everyone’s a little on edge, what she told me was extreme.  
Al Letson:So Garrison, you’ve been in deep with this group of voters this cycle. What’d you take away from it?  
Garrison Hayes:You know, Al, I learned a lot about this community over the last few months. What I knew going in was that Black people hold complex political views like any other group, but much of what I’d seen coming into this reporting journey about Black Republicans was fairly one-dimensional, a caricature of what it means to be Black and conservative. But you know this, Al, Black and conservative doesn’t always mean Black and Republican.  
Al Letson:Yeah, totally. I think that like Black people on a whole, we are not a monolith, and there is so much nuance in it. I think that what traditional journalism does is it flattens that nuance. It makes it like it’s either this or that. When in reality most things are never this or that.  
Garrison Hayes:That’s right. I think the word nuance is key here, and Eugene really represents that nuance. When Black voters turn out for Democrats at 90% in some elections, I think it’s lazy to assume that it’s because of partisanship or blind loyalty to a party. Black voters are making dynamic political calculations, weighing what would be best for their communities, their families, and themselves. And while we won’t know the outcome of this election for a few more weeks, there’s no doubt that those dynamic calculations will be present in the numbers.  
Al Letson:Garrison, my friend, we have to do this more.  
Garrison Hayes:Al, I would love that. This has been such an honor.  
Al Letson:You are listening to two Black men and they’re crazy producer.  
Garrison Hayes:This is [inaudible 00:16:19] Black America.  
Al Letson:Right?  
Garrison Hayes:[inaudible 00:16:21] Black man, Black men.  
Al Letson:You can see Garrison and some of the Trump supporters he spoke with in some beautiful photos taken by Wesaam Al-Badry. Those are on our website at revealnews.org. Our lead producer for this week’s show is Ashley Cleek. Jenny Casas edited the show. She had help from Jamilah King. Additional production support from Sam Van Pykeren and James West. Special thanks to Dave Barasoain and Clay Kane. Fact checking by Sarah Szilagy and Ruth Murai. Legal review by James Chadwick.  
 Our production managers are The Wonder Twins, Steven Rascón, and Zulema Cobb. Score and sound design by the dynamic duo, Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando, my man, yo, Arruda. They had help this week from Claire [inaudible 00:17:18] Mullen. Our interim executive producers are Brett Meyers and Taki Telonidis. Our theme music is by Camarata Lightning. Support for Reveal comes from the Reva & David Logan Foundation, he John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the Hellman Foundation. Support also comes from you, our listeners. Reveal is a co-production of the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. I’m Al Letson, and remember, there is always more to the story.  

Ashley Cleek is a producer for Reveal. She helped develop and launch VICE News’ flagship podcast, VICE News Reports. As a reporter, she's worked with This American Life, VICE, NPR and Latino USA. Her work has won a national Edward R. Murrow Award, a Gracie Award, an International Documentary Association Award and a Third Coast award, and she was a 2020 Livingston Award finalist. She has reported stories across the American South, Turkey, Russia and India. Cleek is based in New York.

Jenny Casas is a senior radio editor for Reveal. She was previously a narrative audio producer at the New York Times. Before that, she reported on the ways that cities systematically fail their people, for WNYC Studios, USA Today, City Bureau, and St. Louis Public Radio. Casas is based in Chicago.

Steven Rascón is the production manager for Reveal. He has also produced the KQED podcast On Our Watch: New Folsom, a serial investigation into the death of two whistleblowers inside California’s most dangerous prison. Their reporting has aired on NPR stations such as Capital Public Radio, WHYY, and KCRW. He also helped produce the Peabody-nominated Reveal podcast series Mississippi Goddam. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley.

Zulema Cobb is an operations and audio production associate for the Center for Investigative Reporting. She is originally from Los Angeles County, where she was raised until moving to Oregon. Her interest in the wellbeing of families and children inspired her to pursue family services at the University of Oregon. Her diverse background includes banking, affordable housing, health care, and education, where she helped develop a mentoring program for students. Cobb is passionate about animals and has fostered and rescued numerous dogs and cats. She frequently volunteers at animal shelters and overseas rescue missions. In her spare time, she channels her creative energy into photography, capturing memories for friends and family. Cobb is based in Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, three kids, three dogs, and cat.

Nikki Frick is a copy editor for Reveal. She previously worked as a copy editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and held internships at the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and WashingtonPost.com. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was an American Copy Editors Society Aubespin scholar. Frick is based in Milwaukee.

Jim Briggs III is a senior sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. He joined the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2014. Jim and his team shape the sound of the weekly public radio show and podcast through original music, mixing, and editing. In a career devoted to elevating high-impact journalism, Jim’s work in radio, podcasting, and television has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, IRE, Gerald Loeb, and Third Coast awards, as well as a News and Documentary Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound. He has lent his ears to a range of podcasts and radio programs including Marketplace, Selected Shorts, Death, Sex & Money, The Longest Shortest Time, NPR’s Ask Me Another, Radiolab, Freakonomics Radio, WNYC’s live music performance show Soundcheck, and The 7 and Field Trip from the Washington Post. His film credits include PBS’s American Experience: Walt Whitman, the 2012 Tea Party documentary Town Hall, and The Supreme Court miniseries. Before that, he worked on albums with artists such as R.E.M., Paul Simon, and Kelly Clarkson at NYC’s legendary Hit Factory Recording Studios. Jim is based in western Massachusetts with his family, cats, and just enough musical instruments to do some damage.

Fernando Arruda is a sound designer, engineer, and composer for Reveal. As a multi-instrumentalist, he contributes to the music, editing, and mixing of the weekly public radio show and podcast. He has held four O-1 visas for individuals with extraordinary abilities. His work has been recognized with Peabody, George Polk, duPont-Columbia, Edward R. Murrow, Gerald Loeb, Third Coast, and Association of Music Producers awards, as well as Emmy and Pulitzer nominations. Prior to joining Reveal, Arruda toured internationally as a DJ and taught music technology at Dubspot and ESRA International Film School. He also worked at Antfood, a creative audio studio for media and TV ads, as well as for clients such as Marvel, MasterClass, and Samsung. His credits also include NPR’s 51 Percent; WNYC’s Bad Feminist Happy Hour and its live broadcast of Orson Welles’ The Hitchhiker; Wondery’s Detective Trapp; and MSNBC’s Why Is This Happening?. Arruda releases experimental music under the alias FJAZZ and has performed with jazz, classical, and pop ensembles such as SFJazz Monday Night Band, Art&Sax quartet, Krychek, Dark Inc., and the New York Arabic Orchestra. He holds a master’s degree in film scoring and composition from NYU Steinhardt. Learn more about his work at FernandoArruda.info.

Claire Mullen worked at The Center for Investigative Reporting until September 2017. is an associate sound designer and audio engineer for Reveal. Before joining Reveal, she was an assistant producer at Radio Ambulante and worked with KALW, KQED, the Association of Independents in Radio and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She studied humanities and media studies at Scripps College.

Missa Perron is the membership manager at the Center for Investigative Reporting. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies, Spanish literature and anthropology from Loyola University Chicago, a digital marketing certificate from General Assembly, and a professional certificate in marketing from UC Berkeley Extension.

Al Letson is the Peabody Award-winning host of Reveal. Born in New Jersey, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, at age 11 and as a teenager began rapping and producing hip-hop records. By the early 1990s, he had fallen in love with the theater, becoming a local actor and playwright, and soon discovered slam poetry. His day job as a flight attendant allowed him to travel to cities around the country, where he competed in slam poetry contests while sleeping on friends’ couches. In 2000, Letson placed third in the National Poetry Slam and performed on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, which led him to write and perform one-man shows and even introduce the 2006 NCAA Final Four on CBS.

In Letson’s travels around the country, he realized that the America he was seeing on the news was far different from the one he was experiencing up close. In 2007, he competed in the Public Radio Talent Quest, where he pitched a show called State of the Re:Union that reflected the conversations he was having throughout the US. The show ran for five seasons and won a Peabody Award in 2014. In 2015, Letson helped create and launch Reveal, the nation’s first weekly investigative radio show, which has won two duPont Awards and three Peabody Awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice. He has also hosted the podcast Errthang; written and developed several TV shows with major networks, including AMC+’s Moonhaven and Apple TV+’s Monarch; and is currently writing a comic for DC Comics. (He loves comics.) When he’s not working, Letson’s often looking for an impossibly difficult meal to prepare or challenging anyone to name a better album than Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides.