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Best known for being the man behind Madea, Perry recently starred in the action thriller Alex Cross which is now out on DVD. We listen back to an October interview, in which he told Fresh Air's Terry Gross that his Madea character is a cross between his mom, his aunt and Eddie Murphy.

Author and sociologist David Cunningham speaks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the origins of cross burnings and white hoods, and why North Carolina had more Klan members during the height of the civil rights movement than all other Southern states combined.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics, including violence in Chicago, the possibilities of 3-D printing, and religious exemptions.

They're the pastors of a growing, biracial Jacksonville church. But Mike and Connie Smith are also garnering attention for a provocative study they…

President Obama is urging both Israelis and Palestinians not to abandon long-stalled peace talks. The president has been practicing some low-key shuttle diplomacy this week.

While being forced to tick a single box for "race" has never been a problem for George Washington III, who is black, his mixed-race children see it differently. And for Dave Kung, being allowed to check two races on the U.S. Census form for the first time prompted an unexpected outpouring of emotion.

Weekend Edition guest host Don Gonyea talks to Leslie Harris, associate professor of history at Emory University, about the controversy triggered by Emory President James Wagner's praise for the "three-fifths compromise" of the U.S. Constitution. The notorious measure decreed that slaves were three-fifths of a person.

The Obama administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief Thursday urging the Supreme Court to overturn California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage. But the brief does not call for abolition of bans on same-sex marriage across the country. Nina Totenberg talks to Audie Cornish.

The advent of bebop added a fresh sound to American music. It also added new voices to some metropolitan radio stations: the late-night jazz DJs who specialized in presenting this new music to their fellow hipster nightflies. Appreciative musicians often wrote them tributes like these.

Janet Sims-Wood, 67, is like millions of other seniors still working in order to make ends meet. For the part-time librarian, the recession put a huge dent in her savings, so she expects she'll have to work as long as her health allows.