Hey there is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House.

And I'm Franco Ardena as I also cover the White House.

Today we're going to get outside of Washington for a bit and focus on activists who have made

a big impact on politics in the past year or two. Specifically, I'm talking about the

women of the WNBA. Franco, can you take us back to last summer 2020? There was a lot of unrest

and you know there was an election going on. I don't know if everybody remember that.

There was an election going on and we didn't know what the outcome would be. But we knew

that there were these two Senate seats up in Georgia that could be really, really important.

And then you also had these athletes who started getting involved.

Yeah, it was really the height of the biggest civil rights movement in recent memory. There

was so much global outrage over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and

it drew attention, anger, frustration in ways unlike before.

The WNBA, the NBA, those players were boycotting games. Players had already started wearing

Black Lives Matter shirts to games to honor Floyd.

We are here with the Atlanta Dreams, Elizabeth Williams and we have had a development here.

The players initially thought they would play tonight, but they have changed their mind

and Elizabeth Williams would like to read this statement.

After speaking with representatives from teams playing tonight, as well as our WNBA

leadership, the consensus is to not play in tonight's slate of games and to Neil, lock

arms and raise fists during the national anthem.

And you know, the WNBA was at the forefront of all this.

We are dedicating this season to Breonna Taylor, an outstanding EMT who was murdered over

...