In this season of Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, we travel back to a pivotal moment in the history of this country, and we trace how, decades before Covid-19, a virus tore through some of our most vulnerable communities while the wider world looked away. We go to a pediatric ward in Harlem, a women’s prison in upstate New York, a drug market in the South Bronx, and the inner sanctum of the National Institutes of Health. And we meet people who demanded that they, and their illness, be seen: mothers and children, doctors and nurses, nuns and sex workers, and a woman who literally helped change the definition of AIDS.

The first episode comes out on Jan. 18.

Blindspot is a co-production of The History Channel and WNYC Studios, in collaboration with The Nation Magazine. Cover photo by Donna Binder.