Okra is not native to North America. It arrived here at the same time enslaved Africans did. No one — no botanist, no historian — can confirm exactly how it got here. But it has connected Southerners across the lines of race, faith, and gender for centuries. In this episode of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, James Beard Award winning journalist Shane Mitchell travels to New Orleans to show how okra unites in the gumbo pot and in our lives.
