Duarte Geraldino talks with journalist Akilah Johnson about her reporting on COVID-19 and its disproportionate impact on Black Americans. Johnson spent much of the pandemic covering health care at ProPublica and is now at the Washington Post. To understand why the disease hit Black Americans so hard, she says, you have to start with the tale of John Henry.

It’s part of our special series marking one year since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.