Race is still the great divide in America and few artists have examined race with as clear an eye as Carrie Mae Weems. She was born in Portland, Ore., to a family with sharecropper roots in Tennessee and Mississippi. At 22, she grabbed a camera - and she has been making award-winning photography and art about the experiences of people of color ever since. In recent years, she has especially focused on violence and black bodies. 

This spring, she started a new project, "RESIST COVID TAKE 6!", focused on the disparities that have resulted in the disproportionate deaths of Black Americans from COVID-19. Then came the protests over the death of George Floyd and police brutality. Weems says the two phenomena are entirely related. 

"Black and brown people have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, which is another form of violence," she said. "And so I immediately started this artist-driven public art campaign that would really attempt to focus the issues around this impact." 

Listen to Weems' conversation with WNYC's Jami Floyd, above.