On Second Thought For Thursday, April 19, 2018

This year's Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists were announced Tuesday. We listened back to interviews with four past and present honorees. Renee Montagne was named a 2018 finalist for her investigation examining racial disparity in maternal deaths. James Forman Jr. won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for his book "Locking Up Our Own:  Crime and Punishment in Black America." We also revisited conversations with Alfred Uhry, who won the Pulitzer for drama in 1988, as well as Bill Dedman, who in 1989 won the prize for investigative reporting.  

On Second Thought for Thursday, April 19, 2018.

The U.S. ranks worst among economically developed countries in maternal deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 700 mothers die every year. Black women face the greatest risk. A recent investigation by ProPublica and NPR examines racial disparity in maternal deaths. GPB special correspondent Celeste Headlee talked with NPR Special Correspondent Renee Montagne, who reported in Atlanta for this series. Her work has been recognized as a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. 

“Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America" explores why so many young men of color wind up in prison. The work of Yale Law School Professor James Forman, Jr., "Locking Up Our Own" has been awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Forman is a graduate of Atlanta's Roosevelt High School and the son of civil rights activists. He joined us in the studio in 2017.  

In 1988, playwright and Atlanta native Alfred Uhry was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play, "Driving Miss Daisy." In 2015, Uhry brought another play, PARADE, to Marietta, Georgia. PARADE is about the case of Leo Frank, a Jewish American jailed for the murder of a 13-year-old girl and eventually lynched by a mob in Marietta. Guest host Adam Ragusea spoke with with Uhry and Kennesaw State University professor Harrison Long, who directed PARADE in Marietta. 

Investigative journalist Bill Dedman won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1989. In a series of articles for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dedman exposed how banks and other mortgage lenders in Atlanta discriminated against middle-income black neighborhoods. Now an investigative reporter for Newsweek, Dedman spoke with GPB special correspondent Celeste Headlee in 2016 for the On Second Thought series "Pulitzer Peaches."