Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, December 3rd, 1997, President Bill Clinton held the first in a series of town hall events in what was known as his National Conversation on Race Initiative.

67 panelists and residents from around Akron to Ohio gathered to have a conversation about

racial bias, ignorance, affirmative action policies. Clinton would do three of these,

and that phrase, the National Conversation on Race, would become ubiquitous, not just

this specific initiative,

but this kind of larger idea that the country needed to come together and talk about race.

Like lots of conversations, this national conversation on race maybe didn't really go anywhere

and people didn't really get on the same page. But let's look back at this initiative, what it was hoping to do, what it did accomplish,

and where the idea of this conversation about race has gone almost 30 years later.

So here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley

for a local conversation about the national conversation,

or a remote Zoom conversation about the national conversation or a remote Zoom conversation about the

national conversation about race, about podcasts, about history.

Hello, Jody.

Hey there.

Talking about talking.

What more people want to listen to?

So I think the thing that we're all fascinated about by this is this sort of basic idea

that we can convene this conversation and it will accomplish what exactly.

Nothing.

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