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NPR's Kenneth Walker in Johannesburg reports South African voters go the polls Tuesday in the first multiracial municipal elections since the end of the Apartheid era. The country's main political parties have aggressively courted black voters, leaving white South Africans feeling marginalized.

On this day in 1950, Earl Lloyd became the first African-American to play in an National Basketball Association game, when he took to the court for the Washington Capitols. He played seven games for the Capitols before the team folded in 1951. Earl was later picked up by the Syracuse Nationals, and then by Detroit Pistons. He retired in 1960. Today Robert Siegel talks to Lloyd about his career, as the NBA kicks off its season tonight.

Linda Paul reports on Chicago residents and their 60-year tradition of African drum-playing in a local park.

Last week, Brown University named a new president, the first African American woman to lead an Ivy League University. NPR's education correspondent Claudio Sanchez has a profile.

South African president Thabo Mbeki is losing support among his countrymen. NPR's Kenneth Walker reports much of the dissatisfaction stems from Mbeki's unorthodox views on AIDS and treatment of the disease.

NPR's Patricia Neighmond reports on racial disparities between African-Americans and whites when it comes to kidney transplants. A new study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine suggests that overuse of transplants in whites, coupled with socioeconomic factors among blacks accounts for the transplant gap. Providing a better social infrastructure for low-income blacks would eliminate much of the disparity.

NPR's Richard Knox reports from Boston where officials from 24 African nations came together last week to discuss the future of AIDS care in their countries. Pharmaceutical companies have pledged to lower the price of AIDS drugs for the poorest nations, where the rate of infection can reach as high as one in four people.

NPR's Sarah McCammon talks with Evan Drellich of The Athletic the faceoff between the upstart Atlanta Braves and the hated Houston Astros in game 1 of the World Series Tuesday.

Sara Blakely, founder and CEO of the pioneering womenswear brand, made the announcement during a celebration of the company's recent sale to global investment firm Blackstone.

The Justice Department next week plans to review complaints from the NAACP alleging irregularities and intimidation of African American voters in Florida. Many African Americans watching the recount of presidential ballots in that state believe the unspoken issue is race. NPR's Phillip Martin reports.