Books that cover history's uncomfortable truths

NPR featured two books that address uncomfortable aspects of North American history — specifically, racial ones — on air yesterday.

Fresh Air's Terry Gross interviewed Drew Gilpin Faust about her new memoir, Necessary Trouble.

In their conversation, Faust — a historian, a civil rights activist, and the first female president of Harvard University — highlights some of the moments from her youth in the South that inspired her to join the fight for equality.

And going further back and farther north, we have an interview about the new novel In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas.

All Things Considered's Ari Shapiro chatted with Thomas about how he came to write the story of a community of free Black people in Canada in the 1800s.

Related posts 

• 109-year-old survivor of the Tulsa Massacre wrote a memoir 

• Born on the Water aims to be truthful, yet gentle, with kids about slavery