Podcasts about Ella Baker

In this Rewind episode, listen as Dr. David J. Johns discusses voting and our rights under attack.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is gone. Not weakened. Not under threat. Gone. The legal architecture that turned 7% Black voter registration in Mississippi into 60%—dismantled, decision by decision, by a Supreme Court that was never neutral and was never on our side.But that's not even the whole story. Because while the courts were killing the VRA, the Justice Department was being turned into a weapon. FBI agents raided a Black state senator's office mid-day—Fox News already on the scene—while allies under federal investigation had their evidence destroyed. Ballots from Fulton County are in federal custody. Arizona. Michigan. They are building the architecture of election interference before the midterms. In public. And most people don't even know it's happening.This episode is about all of it. The Proud Boys as a militia. The Roberts Court as an antidemocratic enforcement mechanism. The Southern Strategy, sixty years old and running on steroids. And the organizing tradition—Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Hungary's opposition movement—that proves rigged maps can be beaten and stolen futures can be reclaimed.This is the class I didn't want to have to teach. But you need it. Pull up.SHOW NOTESThe death of the Voting Rights Act—Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Brnovich v. DNC (2021), and the April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which Justice Elena Kagan called "all but a dead letter."The pardon of 1,500+ January 6th participants and the DOJ's move to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders.The FBI raid on Fulton County's election center, the subpoenas targeting Arizona and Michigan 2024 ballots, and what it means for the midterms.The mid-day FBI raid on Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas's office, with Fox News cameras already rolling—and not one charge filed.The two-tier justice system in plain sight: evidence destroyed for allies, prosecutions launched against opponents.Elie Mystal's proposal to add 20 justices to structurally change the Supreme Court's incentive for extremism.How Hungary's opposition built 208 local chapters and 50,000 poll watchers—and won a supermajority against a gerrymandered map.The Afrofuturist tradition of Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin as the organizing inheritance we carry forward.Black Power War Room — blackpowerwarroom.com National Black Justice Coalition — nbjc.org NBJC Equity Week — nbjc.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.

L. Joy is back on the the porch solo to have a deeply personal, faith-rooted conversation with us about what real change demands of us. Not in theory, but in practice. She draws from the Black faith tradition and the wisdom of movement ancestors like Septima Clark, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph, to reframe democracy not as a belief system or a moment, but as a daily practice. L. Joy points out that many of us love the idea of transformation, the language of justice, freedom, and democracy, yet resist the requirements that come with it. We often hesitate when those ideals ask for discipline, sacrifice, or personal change. Faith without works, as L. Joy reminds us, is dead, and so is democracy without participation Change is not magic. Change is not permission. Change is commitment.

What's happening? How did we get here? Where are we on the clock of the world? And where do we go from here? Today—and everyday—we need to ask ourselves deep and fundamental questions in order to continue to develop a dynamic and concrete analysis of concrete conditions—a guide to resistance and action. Surrender is not an option, and living in a perpetual defensive crouch is never the way forward. No. In the words of the legendary organizer Ella Baker, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” In June, 2026 Bill met up with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor at Haymarket House for a wide-ranging conversation about this political moment and what the known demands of us now. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a MacArthur Fellow and the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the co-founder of Hammer & Hope, a magazine of Black politics and culture, and author of several books: Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, and How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. Over the past few years, a series of popular uprisings across the world have been described by mainstream media as “Gen-Z Uprisings” – movements led by young people and described in western media as generally being against government corruption. These movements have been most notably visible in our own media due to their use of technology, including platforms like Discord and TikTok, and internationally consistent adoption of pop culture symbolism, like the flag of the “straw hat pirates,” a black flag depicting a grinning jolly roger wearing a straw hat. The flag is the banner of the protagonists of the long-running hit anime series One Piece whose adventures often find them coming to the defense of marginalized communities around their world. But these movements didn't come out of nowhere (or the internet for that matter). Understanding their origins – and the elections that have resulted from their successes – can shed light both onto the international struggle against authoritarianism and the challenges we face building an alternative. In this episode we are looking at two countries, Nepal and Bangladesh, where popular uprisings in the summer of 2024 and fall of 2025 have led to elections this year. In this episode, we are joined by two US based organizers, Sharmin Hossain and Samir Shrestha, whose work as part of South Asian diasporas has rooted them in movement work here in the US while maintaining relationships and solidarity abroad. Sharmin Hossain is a Bangladeshi Muslim organizer from Queens, New York, who is currently the Organizing Director for 18 Million Rising. To learn more about 18 Million Rising, check out their site at www.18millionrising.org. Follow Sharmin on all platforms at @sharminultra Samir Shrestha belongs to the indigenous Newari tribe of Nepal, where he was born. He has spent the last 18 years involved in movement work here in the US. To learn more about The Ruckus Society and request a training, visit: www.ruckus.org/training-action-support/training-requests/ To learn more about Convergence Magazine and the Block and Build Podcast, follow them at @_convergencemag and @blockandbuildpod. Check out Covergence's work at www.convergencemag.com. Transcript Swati Rayasam: [00:00:00] welcome fellow travelers to Apex Express. It's been a minute, but in case you don't remember, my name is Swati Rayasam, and I'm gonna be your conductor tonight. I have been very excited about this week's episode for a few months because tonight Apex is featuring Convergence Magazine's Block and Build podcast. Block and Build is creating a roadmap for the movement that's working to block the impacts of [00:01:00] rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win. And both the team at Convergence and the guests for tonight's show are close comrades and friends of Apex. On this episode, Cayden Mak, podcast host and editor-in-chief of Convergence, is joined by Samir Shrestha and Sharmin Hossain, two US-based organizers from the South Asian diaspora, Nepal and Bangladesh respectively. Sharmin and Samir will talk about the history and continued struggles of the international Gen Z uprisings, which have only really made a blip in Western media coverage. They'll discuss the history of those movements and the political conditions which created them, as well as help us understand how Americans can be in meaningful solidarity with people's movements abroad. Without further ado, I'll hand it over to Cayden. Cayden: Over the past few years, a series of popular uprisings across the world have been described by mainstream media as the Gen Z uprisings, movements led by young people and described in Western media as [00:02:00] generally being against government corruption. These movements have been most notably visible in our own media due to their use of technology, including platforms like Discord and TikTok, and internationally consistent adoption of pop culture symbolism. but these movements didn't come out of nowhere, or out of just the internet, for that matter. Understanding their origins and the elections that have resulted from their successes can shed light both onto the international struggle against authoritarianism and the challenges that we face building an alternative. In this episode, we're looking at two countries in particular, Nepal and Bangladesh, where popular uprisings in the summer of 2024 and fall of 2025 have led to elections this year. I was recently joined by two US-based organizers, Sharmin Hossain and Samir Shrestha, whose work as part of the South Asian diaspora has rooted them in movement work here in the US while maintaining relationships and solidarity abroad. Sharmin Hossain is a Bangladeshi Muslim organizer from Queens, New York, who's currently the organizing director for 18 Million Rising. Sharmin, thanks so much for joining us today  Sharmin: Thank you for having me. I love Convergence.  Cayden: Thank you. [00:03:00] And, Samir Shrestha belongs to the indigenous Newari tribe of Nepal, where he was born. He spent the past 18 years involved in movement work here in the US, and Samir, it's really good to see you this morning.  Samir: So good to see you too, Cayden.  Cayden: Well, to start us off, let's try and set some context Sharmin. I'm wondering if you can give us kind of a quick gloss of the 2024 uprisings in Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her party were ousted from power. What are the sort of themes of the protests, and then the way that the state responded, and where are we kind of now? Sharmin: Wow, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to talk about my country and all the amazing things that happened, because I think the Global South really forges, like, new possibilities as far as, like, what we can do and, and consolidate as far as power goes. So today is actually March 26th, and it's Bangladeshi Independence Day, coincidentally. Cayden: Happy independence Day.  Sharmin: Happy Independence Day. I find it very serendipitous for us to delve into this layered and complex history, um, of the student movement. So [00:04:00] the Bangladesh student protests of July 2024, were deeply rooted in systemic inequalities that the young working class and the poor faced. Nearly 32 million young people were actually out of the workforce, or education in a population of a country of 170 million. So that's a pretty significant number. And so that issue was a focal point for widespread discontent in the country. In July of 2024, the High Court of Bangladesh actually reinstated a quota system for government jobs after an appeal was made when the then-ruling Hasina government abolished the quota system, um because in 2018 she faced a lot of pressure from student protesters. But this quota system is really interesting, and it represents a lot. It reserved 30% of government jobs for descendants of freedom fighters. And in Bangladeshi history, that's a very complex and layered identity. Millions of our [00:05:00] ancestors actually fought in the liberation war against the US-backed Pakistani military, and the Bangladeshi Liberation War, and genocide in Bangladesh actually resulted in the death of over three million people who sacrificed for the birth of our nation. And so for the Hasina government, the quota system was actually what she used to appoint a lot of her loyalists and her supporters to high levels of government, the military, and it basically created the political ecosystem for the Awami League, her party, to maintain dominance. And the Awami League actually was the party that once led the liberation struggle, and over the course of 15 years, we actually saw how much they consolidated power through political repression, the Digital Security Acts that was surveilling and targeting freedom of speech, as well as the corruption and fear that they [00:06:00] stoked against their opposition. And these government jobs, like most of us, it represents many things. It represents the government's responsibility to take care of poor people, um, economic and political opportunity, and it also represents, like, the corruption and the authoritarian rule of the Awami League, and how they were rigging elections, and how the court systems, and even entrance exams for the Bangladeshi civil service, were actually regularly leaked and compromised. And so -within that background, that's when you have the Students Against Discrimination movement take the streets in July demanding fair access to government jobs. And things actually got violent really fast. Within seven days, nearly 174 people were murdered, and thousands were injured. There was an indefinite curfew, social media blackouts, and then a military occupation with shoot on sight orders. And of course, the bullets that were raining upon, Bangladeshis were US, [00:07:00] arms. So students were terrorized by these vigilante groups that were collaborating with the Bangladeshi police. And these student groups were actually organized by the Bangladeshi Awami League. These student groups were notorious for repressing student elections, sexually assaulting students, um really threatening people that were running for student elections. And so there's already this, like, vigilante ecosystem that exists within the campuses that was weaponized during the student protests. And then you have a climax moment on July 14th. Sheikh Hasina went on television accusing the students of being Razakars, and Razakars are collaborators of the Pakistani army, and it's a very derogatory term in Bangladesh, and it refers to people who support the Pakistani military's operation to suppress the Bangladeshi Liberation War. They're also accused of heinous crimes. And so when students were accused of being Razakars, it, like, [00:08:00] lit a fire. Millions took the streets that day, and they were like, “Oh, hell no.” Like, “How dare she disrespect us?” While there's thousands of people who are on the streets, blood, everywhere. Rickshaw wallas are having to pull students into hospitals. There's just so much violence happening on the ground. And so on that National Day of Action, July 15th, clashes happen. Multiple deaths are live-streamed, and one of them, Abu Sayeed, he was a university student at Rangpur University in northwest Bangladesh, really galvanized the country because we watched this student, who is not armed, surrender and get sh- shot, by the Bangladeshi police. And we know what these spontaneous moments of violence do to the public, right? It usually always sets fire to another wave of social protests and action. And so then millions start marching to Sheikh Hasina's home, and [00:09:00] really, her brutal and arrogant response sealed her fate. And the protesters, and at this point, this is a populist movement, millions of people that are rickshaw wallas, working-class people, students, teachers, are taking the streets, marching towards her house. And they demand her resignation. And on August 5th, within 36 days of the movement, she resigns and flees to India, our neighboring country. Over 1,400 people have been killed, under her brutal repression. And so that's some of the background of the student movement, and we can talk more about some of the dynamics of it. Cayden: Yeah, that's super helpful, and I think reflecting on the ways in which also the sort of, like, escalation on the part of the government is, I think, a really important story here, for sure. Samir, I'll also now turn it to you. What should our listeners know about last fall's uprisings in Nepal, which also ousted the sitting government of, K.P. Oli and his, his party and how they led to [00:10:00] elections, earlier this month, in March of this year?  Samir: Thanks, Cayden, and Happy Independence Day to you, Sharmin. I am somebody who was born and raised in Nepal, and am spending most of my life in the diaspora now, and I wanna name the limitations of, uh, my understanding of what's going on in Nepal because of me not being on the ground organizing with the masses. And, I wanna honor the work that's been happening in Nepal, on the ground one of the big things that, that's really n- is important to name is, like, it's only been 20 years since we abolished monarchy. Uh- Mm-hmm. … uh, 2006, right? That is a big thing for us to understand. And the party that was in power, and has been in power since, was the party that has been organizing our movements, and that is the organized left in Nepal, and, like, really betrayed our people once we, once they got into power, right? And, like, started kind of veering towards the right once they got in power. So 20 years later The economic conditions of our people on the ground are really dire. There's no jobs available. People are migrating. A lot of our folks, one of the biggest source of economy and source of money for our, [00:11:00] our people back home is, like, migrant work, uh, in Dubai and, traveling to Dubai, Qatar, and working under very bad conditions. So one- that's one of the big things that's also been informing,, lot of the consciousness of the- our young people in Nepal, right? And then one of the other things that's named really important is, so since the election, since 2006, the Communist Party, the Congress Party, and the Maoist Party have been, they're the only ones who have been in power for the last 20 years, and these are all old upper caste men, even though they were the ones who were leading the movement and were organizing at left. But these were s- the representation and the leaders in these parties were all upper caste, caste Arya people, which is the dominant caste in Nepal, right? And that's a very important layer to name. And that really informed, I think, a lot of the ways they showed up after we won. And, and that's one, one big question that we always have in the left, right? What do we do after we- Yeah … abolish monarchy? What do we do after we win? And we haven't figured that out too, as does any other movements, right? And 20 years later, the frustration is on the very high, against the status quo. And then we, and there [00:12:00] was a lot of, like, obviously there was a lot of inspiration from Bangladesh, like Indonesia, and, like, the uprisings there. And, like, this one, uh, thing started trending the young people started organizing around Nepo babies. There's like, you know, “Yeah, you don't have access to we do, you're gonna take our access away from social media while your kids, and people who have connections to you and have, access to you are just posting about the life, the lavish life they're living abroad and in my homelands,” right? So that's one of the places where it started. And once that started, there was online campaign. And there was already conversations around banning social media in Nepal, and they were- Hmm … finding, like, different ways around it, and that really escalated the way people really responded to the situation, is like once they started organizing around Nepo babies and how they were, like, getting momentum around that, that's when exactly the social media ban went into effect, right? And that's a really important name because, like, one of the biggest pet peeves for me as a diaspora person has been this idea of people only started the uprising and took the streets because of the social media ban. [00:13:00] But just- Hmm. Mm-hmm … all these other things really added up to it. That was just the, just the point of escalation, right? So fast-forward, people started organizing on Discord. Uh, also the irony of it is that was one of the apps that was banned, uh, in Nepal as, uh… And people started organizing in Discord. And also wanna name the reality of, like, the only people who had access to Discord are also, like, privileged folks like us- Sure like younger, upper middle class people. So we were not really getting folks from outside Kathmandu and from our villages and from rural areas, right? So they didn't really have any say in what the organizing would look like. So it happened very, organically, very decentralized. So there was a call for people to show up at Maitighar which has been a popular protest space in Nepal, for a very long time. And it was like at the, at the center of Kathmandu. So there was a call out september 8. A lot of folks came out, and then people from outside Kathmandu that couldn't make it to Kathmandu started coming in big numbers. And the goal of the protest was peaceful protest, right? [00:14:00] And one of the things that happened, don't quote me on this, but my understanding of it from, talking to people there is, like, a lot of political parties who had, who were the opposition from the Communist Party at that time started infiltrating the protest, and the protest started becoming, quote-unquote, “violent,”, which was not, uh, what the young people wanted. So fast-forward, that led to 19 deaths on the first day of the protest, which led to the home minister resigning, at the end of the day. But Oli, the prime minister, is so arrogant and really didn't figure out the power of young people and, like, how they could keep mobilizing and organizing. He decided to just downplay them and say, “I'm not resigning,” which led to more heightened escalated protests the second day, where people started marching to the parliament buildings and started burning down buildings. And people started, people got to a lot of, like, the political parties' political party leader home and started burning them, and, really started, holding them accountable. And also , there was videos of clips of, like, people torching into people's homes and, like, [00:15:00] Sher Bahadur Deuba, who has been in power for the last 20 years in different, ways, who's one of the, considered one of the most corrupt leader in Nepal, from Nepali Congress party, got attacked by the protesters. So fast-forward, more escalation led to, like, 52 more deaths, and the Oli party finally decided to resign at the end of that night, and that's, that's when curfew was impo- imposed by, the army. So that led to, like, a total of 72 deaths. I wanna name, like, in just the two days of mobilization, two days of organizing, because sometimes in the left we don't understand. We talk about the similarities of our struggles but we don't really talk about the conditions that led to it and, like, the level for the risk that our folks leveraged, to be able to topple the government, right? So I just wanna name that out loud and honor that part of, like, how the, how people, like, really leveraged risk. And then fast-forward, people started organizing. The conversation kept going on on Discord, and then there was, like, a town hall style meetings happening on Discord where, like, I think 7 to 8,000 people were on it. And also I still wanna name again, the people who didn't have access to the internet and [00:16:00] phones were not able to part- participate in that. And decided Susila Karki, who was a chief justice 10 years ago, a woman, who also joined protesters during the first day of them mobilizing in the street. They decided, they voted, to hold her as the interim prime minister for now. And There was also one other layer is like a lot of people wanted Balen Sah, who is our prime minister now, but constitutionally if he was part of the interim government, he wouldn't be able to run for prime minister. So that was like a strategic decision that, uh, like he made, and the movement made around not electing him as part of the interim government. So one of the big responsibilities of the interim government was to hold elections in six months, which honestly I was not very-  Cayden: That's hugely ambitious. Samir: It is hugely ambitious, right? And also the reality is it happened, and also there are questions around, yeah, were we able to hold elections in a way where everybody had access to it, right? And that is a big question that I'm still asking, I'm still sitting with. But there were like record numbers that showed up to the polls, but [00:17:00] we haven't really, like we still really don't have answers around what accessibility looked like for people to show up at the polls. And fast-forward now, the Rastriya Swatantra Party which emerged at like a, at a very popular party in 2022, won with majority. And we just sworn in our new Prime Minister Balen Sah yesterday, we can talk about more later. Cayden: Well, thank you for summing up, both of you for summing up- Pretty long, complex histories fairly quickly for us. I've been thinking about the way that, like, Western media largely reports on these kinds of uprisings as if they come out of nowhere. And, like, we know as movement people that rarely, if ever, like, do they truly come out of nowhere. So, like, yeah, I wanna dig into what the longer arc of these stories really is. And I, I really wanna talk about, I guess, like, the specific texture in both Bangladesh and Nepal about how these protest movements position themselves against the government, against, like, other social forces, and, like, how kind of, like, other social phenomena acted on and shaped [00:18:00] these movements as well. Sharmin: I love that question 'cause it allows us to see, like, also the rich history of our, like, respective areas, and how much, like, young people have always been at the forefront of so many revolutionary struggles. And we often, um, you know, uh, post social media era like to make generalizations that this never existed before. But actually, you know, in Bangladesh, students are the most incredibly organized force that has shaped much of our history since 1947. The 1969 uprisings against Ayub Khan, the 1971 Liberation War, and then the , 1987 protests against the military dictator Ershad. And then later, our return to democratic governance in 1990 and the road safety protests of 2018, which actually laid the groundwork for so much of the student, frustration with the government not being able to keep students safe because of road safety issues and [00:19:00] just, the general mismanagement of transportation and, public resources. And so the campus has always been a key space for the pulse of the nation. But it's also a key space for goons and vigilante groups to organize their forces. So the Bangladesh Awami League has their faction, the Chhatra League, and then there's, you know, the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is the right-wing Islamist group of Bangladesh that has been growing, has their faction, the Chhatra Shibir. And then the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which, you know, has been in opposition to the Awami League, also has their goons on campuses. And so one of the major, trends you'll see during these moments is how these factions are actually weaponized to make sure that the violent state apparatus is deployed within public spaces. And, you know, you asked about, like, missteps and some of the things that political formations, might forget to plan for or think [00:20:00] about. And, you know, one of the things that I, I'm sure Samir can relate a little bit is, like, a lot of these student organizations, you know, students against discrimination, there was a group of men who claimed leadership of the student movement and formed, a party, the National Citizens Party. And you notice quickly the contradictions of their formation. All the women leaders were either asked to leave or they left because of what an undemocratic, unfeminist space it was. And then you noticed quickly that the National Citizen Party started allying itself with the right-wing forces to gain a populist base. And that, to me, is the, one of the biggest contradictions of what do leftists do when we gain power? And also, like, the sober conversation is, are these leaders leftists? Or did-  Cayden: Yeah, were they ever? Were they ever?  Sharmin: Or did we project our leftist dreams onto them and I think one of the things that [00:21:00] we've been doing for many generations, and I think Vincent Bevins' work really synopsizes this well, in looking at the last decade of popular uprisings, is that we've been doing politics without ideology, right? Mm-hmm. That these political for- formations actually don't have a coherent theory of change when they're contesting for power. And so you notice quickly the National Citizens Party was very reactionary, and it was very anti-fascist by, their vernacular, but what anti-fascism meant was that we hate the Awami League, we're gonna ban the Awami League, and the Awami League is no longer going to exist. And then we're- Yes … gonna fight for Sheikh Hasina to be hanged, right? And so that became their populist slogan.  Cayden: Hmm.  Sharmin: And so, you know, there is no left force in Bangladesh, and that's something that we have to name, that for sure there are garment workers that are organizing a party. There's a communist league that does not actually grow in their base. Um- Hmm … and that is why coming out of [00:22:00] the July uprisings, you notice this leadership actually turned center right really fast because they didn't have a, a vision that was rooted in economic and political struggles of the working-class students who made up majority of the base of people that were on the streets. Um, and you know, it was surprising, Cayden, I'll just say, like, after the, the NCP was getting ready for elections that just happened this past February, they joined a coalition with the largest Islamist force of Bangladesh, and this is such a misstep, right? To join forces. W- your enemy of your enemy is not your friend, right? Like, wh- where, like, where, when has that gotten us anywhere? It falls into the traps of organizing without a clear, coherent ideology, and then the post-uprising impact is weakened. And so a lot of that groundwork of, like, theoretical work, we actually have to do that to be able to be ready for fights that take power in the way that [00:23:00] feel, restorative and generative, instead of what we're seeing now, which is a populist right-wing growth in Bangladesh. Cayden: That feels like such an important lesson that we need to learn, unfortunately, over and over again, and I feel like this theme of, the enemy of my enemy is sometimes still my enemy has been coming up on this show a lot lately. That like, it, I, uh, you know, we see it happening in our movement politics here too, especially in, in this sort of moment of authoritarian retrenchment in our own government, that like, there are, there are challenges around that, and there's like ways that I think, yeah, it makes sense that it feels good in the moment to be like, “Yeah, there's more of us than there are of them.” But it's like, well, who, who are us? Like, what is the us that we're talking about? Samir, I will pass it to you to talk about, I guess, some of the texture that we should know about the protest movement in Nepal, and like what are the ways that, other social forces also outside the state have shaped the way that the protests have played out there. Samir: I was listening to Sharmin, and I was like, “Oh, there's so many similarities,” [00:24:00] like in a lot of the political forces that led our movements and also like talking about K.P. Oli, there's so many similarities of like how they were the face of the movement. And as somebody who really admired K.P. Oli because, you know, he was part of the social movement left. He was part of , like the first people's movement struggles, uh, that happened in the '90s that got rid of absolute monarchy. He was the face of the Communist Party. He did take up arms, right? So all of the tools that our revolutionary histories have used to, find liberation, right? So he used a diversity of tactics. Like, he started as somebody who believed in picking up arms. And then he led a people's movement in the '90s of, like with other political parties to get rid of the Panchayat system, which was a system of absolute monarchy and where all the political parties were dissolved right by the king from the 1960 to 1990, right? But one of the big things that I think we didn't think about when our movements were being led, when our movement ancestors were organizing and like really thinking about is like what does identity mean for our movements. There's political forces, [00:25:00] the social movement parties that are leading our people and organizing our people, and they did the organizing that happened in Nepal, the door-to-door, the base building that happened, if that was done by political parties, right? Which is true, and we need to name that layer, too. And I think one of the things that we're missing in this moment right now is we have been so, so frustrated by the last 20 years of governance by these forces. We wanna forget the political history of how we got here, right? Mm-hmm. And that has been one of my big critique of the young people in Nepal, right? And for me, I also think about as somebody who's getting older and also had access to my dad who was part of this movement, right? He was a big force as part of the Communist Party, and now he's heavily traumatized because of the way he got betrayed by his comrades, right? And I think one of the forces I was talking about identity is, like, all of these political forces were led by upper caste Brahmin men, and there was no indigenous representation. So finally, the 1990, we were able to get rid of absolute [00:26:00] monarchy. By '96, we still don't have full democracy in Nepal, so, you know, the Maoists decided to wage a civil war where they really organized the masses, and really created conditions for the monarchy, to bow down, right? And the Maoist party came out of this forest and, like, built a coalition with the Communist Party and the Congress Party to take the streets again. In 2006, we finally were able to get rid of monarchy, but 2006 to 2014 was a struggle to, like, really, draft a new constitution for us, where we made some progress and where we also did some things where it took us back around, like, women's rights, right? And so there was a big feminist movement that really created, like, organizing conditions of 2026 in so many ways, right? And one of the things that we were seeing during the last 20 years is what's happening is all the communist parties, the people who led our movements and uprisings were veering towards the right, right? Hmm. Because they consolidated more power, like, you know, exactly what happened with, uh, Bangladesh. They consolidated more power where, you know, they could stay in power [00:27:00] for long. The indigenous folks were part of the struggles and the uprisings in the 100 years of our movement struggles. But once we won and they got, the Communist Party got into power, they started, like, pushing policies that would not benefit indigenous peoples, right? And then one of the big things that Nepal wanted is federalism in terms of, like, one of the big critiques of Nepal has been the government is so centralized in Kathmandu. Other people outside of Kathmandu really don't get to take part in politics. And, so federalism was one of the big things that we pushed for, right? At Indigenous Struggles, that is the one thing that we pushed for so that we can govern our homelands, and that was the one thing that Oli was, like, against too, and that was also one of the reasons why he started becoming less and less popular, right? But one of the things that's 2026 was, I think it's also really important to understand, is the 2026 uprisings were led by youth who I believe, I dare to say, didn't have, the full understanding, the political understanding of our political histories in that way. And there's this, like, disconnect in terms of, like… it's hard for me to bridge the 100 years of left in Nepal [00:28:00] and like, you know, this youth uprising that's happening in Nepal that has no connection because it's not an organized group, right? It's very decentralized. Right. It happened on Discord. And that is one of the big questions we have now is, like, how do we as young people, the young people who led this uprisings, how do they stay organized, right? And that is a big question we still don't, we don't have answers to, right? The movement histories and, you know, the last 20 years has been very traumatizing, but there's also so many lessons and so many beautiful things that happened during the organizing, right? So how do we make those connections? How do we ask those questions? How do we talk to this feminist group? How do we talk to, like, workers, right? We need to figure that out. And I think one of the big things, like Sharmin talked about too, is like the student protest student movements were a big part of how we got liberation in Nepal, and the student movements are like directly connected to political parties because they have the student wing. But that also doesn't mean they are not organized. Yes, they were organized, and they really figured it out, but they have gotten corrupt. There's goons there, there's only men there. [00:29:00] And, like, how do we really ask those questions as a movement now and start building on some of our social movement histories? And that is a big question. And I haven't heard anything, and I'm very curious what's gonna happen on that, and I've been sitting with that a lot, too.  Cayden: Yeah. No, I, I mean, I feel like thinking about the challenges in remembering and then sometimes, like, having movement history misremembered to us by people with motivations. I can see how in that way for these young people who are getting organized, who are, like, trying to figure out what they want from the government in the future . there's some real, delicate territory for them to negotiate around, like, understanding themselves in a lot of ways as political and historic actors, which is really interesting. Swati Rayasam: You are tuned in to Apex Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org.  Cayden: One of the other trends that [00:30:00] I would love to talk about is this, sort Western media trend where, an uprising happens somewhere, a protest movement happens somewhere, and they're like, “Oh, there's an interim government. Great.” And then, like, in the US, we don't hear anymore the establishment of interim government is, first of all, deeply informed by the social movements and social forces that are already moving on the ground and also glosses over the way politics is done in a particular place. I'm wondering if there's stuff that you've noticed that has really been lost from the international media discourse about the politics of both Bangladesh and Nepal since the sort of student uprising moment. And if there's stuff that you've been seeing in the like, interim government moments that you're like, “Oh, this is something to watch out for.” Like, “This is something that we can draw some lessons from.”  Sharmin: Yeah. Well, in Bangladesh we had a United States favorite Nobel Laureate, you know, Muhammad Yunus- Mm-hmm as our interim government. And, and I think what's so fascinating is that, you know, he is the world's sweetheart because he created [00:31:00] this, like, you know, microfinancing program that is, a program that they say, you know, empowers the poor people. And, we know that in practice it actually did not reverse poverty, and it actually left millions of people in more debt, than, they or- originally were projected to gain. And so I think what's very fascinating about having such a pro-capitalist, figure that is, a sweetheart of empire, it spoke to his legacy in office, you know? During his time, he also signed one of the most devastating US-Bangladesh trade agreements with Trump- Hmm … which actually, further isolates China from the Bangladeshi trade market and, forces Bangladesh to do all of our trade deals with the US. And it's a non-binding agreement. And so it is, deeply unlawful and also devastating to the economy of this area of Southeast Asia that actually needs China as, an ally, as a country that has, contributed a lot to the development of [00:32:00] our, transportation systems and, so for us it- it's also about how much of this interim government was, you know, representing the interests of the global elite and what he was willing to do to be able to s- to, to squash, revolutionary energy within the country. The Women's Commission was one of the most powerful consolidation of feminist leaders under the interim government that were looking to reform land laws for women. And similar to what, Samir was saying, right? Women's rights just are the first thing that these governments throw under the bus and that- women's commission report that was looking to really examine land laws and inheritance laws and and the rights of women economically like actually triggered one of the largest anti-feminist rallies in the country's history- Wow … where millions, millions of Jamaat-e-Islami men and their supporters took the streets in [00:33:00] protest of women having rights. And that was something you did not see the Western media touch, even-  Cayden: No …  Sharmin: even though the Western media was, like, so excited for this revolution, right? You know, on the ground too, you have those people that are like, “This is a CIA-backed, like, uprising,” right? And then on the ground you see, like, oh yeah, people actually don't want to touch the complexities of this country because it is layered within, like, religious nationalisms- Mm-hmm ethnic nationalisms, and caste. And so in my experience, I would just say that people know very little of the political forces within this, greater West Asian political landscape and how it connects to US imperialism here and abroad, you know? Pakistan was once the CIA's closest ally in the Cold War, and they continue to be during the war on terror right now, right? Mm-hmm. The United States provided Pakistan with military, diplomatic, and economic support because a [00:34:00] pro-US military dictatorship in this region that was a staunch anti-communist ally created a buffer between the axis of the USSR, China. Cayden: Hmm.  Sharmin: And then I'll say at the same time, on the ground, there were dozens of reports of mobs that were attacking temples and Hindu leaders. Hindus are a minority in Bangladesh that have been historically, marginalized, and these contradictions were, were getting highlighted, right? Because that violence was eerily similar, right? The partition of South Asia- Yeah …  Cayden: excluded  Sharmin: Hindu-Muslim communalism, and there were tensions and divides that fell across class lines. And for Western and, hegemonic media outlets, this looked like, oh, the Muslims are attacking the Hindus again.  Samir: Right.  Sharmin: And so for me, like, the being able to reckon Islamophobia, communal violence, identity and class politics, but also the way nationalism operates in South Asia, it, it's a tricky dance [00:35:00] And I've been learning how to really convey this complex history because the country's, uh like, beautiful history of, like, using guerrilla warfare to defeat US-backed forces in the region, it also represents something different from its neighbors, India and Pakistan. Mm-hmm. And within that, you know, we have Bangladesh joining the PLO in Lebanon to fight on behalf of Palestinian liberation. We have the fact that the country's actually i- inception was based on a socialist vision, right? And it's now one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with the fast fashion garment industry that's also ravaged by climate crisis and mass displacement. And so for me, it always just comes back to anti-war and anti-imperialism, like all the nodes of my brain, because I'm like, “Here's this US global death-making machine and this defense industry that sells tear gas shells to my country and [00:36:00] sells Israeli surveillance technology to my country.” And then there's this Bangladesh trade agreement that Trump was able to wager during this vulnerable moment for our country and it's at the core of all the political and economic violence within my country. And so the neoliberalization of our campuses and what these students are facing is because of the war economy. And so, so I just, like, zoom out in those moments, and I'm like, “Oh, this, this feels very much so like Cold War politics and the aftermath.”  Cayden: Yeah, like the politics of the Cold War have just simply never left us. Like, they're still here, and it's like we've sort of swapped in China as the big bad in a lot of ways.  Sharmin: Right.  Cayden: Samir, I wonder if there's, stuff that you've been seeing about the interim government in Nepal that you think are worth our sort of examination as kind of like lessons that we can draw from what happens after the protest, and yeah, like how that has been part of the electoral moment also we're in in Nepal right now. Samir: Yeah, [00:37:00] well, the interim government was, what was it, about five months. I think we didn't really see a lot of work that happened from the interim government, but obviously one of the big wins of the interim government was they were successfully able to hold elections. And the Western media has only focused on Balen Saha, this, quote-unquote, “rapper,” this charismatic guy who is gonna, who's 35 years old and is gonna lead. And then like Sushila Karki, I mean, one of the big things that everybody is like, “Oh, she's the first woman prime minister of Nepal, and what does that mean for us?” And, you know, this identity politics of like, “Oh, we finally got a woman president.” And for us it's like when we talk about it, that's the only thing we see in the discourse. But the reality is she was also a woman prime minister in an interim government that she knew was gonna last for six months, right? And also one of the things that a lot of people don't think about and realize is like the youth really didn't know who she was. And I think that's one of the big things that Sarmin talked about too, is like how do our youth have the consciousness? And do we have a left, social movement left, that's actually supporting them to really understand, you know, the conditions [00:38:00] of our people and who we're electing and, like, how we're organizing and what that means for us, right? But one of the big popularities about her was, like, she was not a career, jurist as she was appointed, was a lawyer that was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009 by the Judicial Council, and she had this reputation of pushing back against some of the political parties and some of the establishments in that time. So that was, like, one of the big things that really lured our folks, there was this one interview of her that went really viral about how she talks about, you know, establishment parties and how she challenged, some of the status quo while she was… Because a lot of times what happens with some of these appointments are people who are loyal to the to the parties, right? That was the one big thing that really attracted a lot of our young folks, to mobilize around her being the prime minister. And it's just, like, a lot of unknowns around, like, we still don't know because with the older parties, it was very clear to us that the Communist Party was, like, more loyal to China, right? And the Congress party was more loyal to India. And then one of the things a lot that we don't see in the discourse even in left spaces, right? Even [00:39:00] in, like, media spaces is, more than US imperialism, India and China is also waging some form of imperialism in our homelands, right? And that we don't wanna name that layer because in the US, as, us being in the belly of the beast, our only responsibility is to fight US imperialism. And then for me, as somebody from the Global South, I understand that how that impacts our movement and how that is dangerous and harmful to our people in our, back in our homeland. Because China and India are bullying Nepal in a lot of different ways politically, right? Because nothing happens in Nepal without the consent of India and China, right? And India obviously has more power, and they're, like, fighting over that power in Nepal right now. And the other thing that I wanted to name is, I was hoping K.P. Oli, during our interim prime ministership, during that interim government, would be held accountable, which didn't happen. And we're not talking about that, right? And also she [Karki] had a lot of limitations, and we still are figuring out what, like, what kind of power she held, right? But the hope was for me was, like, that she would hold the people who were responsible for our people's deaths accountable during the six months she was there, which [00:40:00] really didn't happen and really moved. And that's one of the things that hasn't been talked about, and I think that was a big political opportunity for her to do some of that work to push K.P. Oli out of power because he, after doing all of this, was still able to contest the elections and lost really badly. But one of the things for me, the inspiration was, like, how Sheikh Hasina was pushed out of the country, right? Like, that was one of the hopes and dreams, and that didn't really happen, during this interim government.  Cayden: Hmm. That's interesting that there's, like, a possibility that he might be back. Well, I wanna turn a little bit to thinking about this history that's been unfolding and, like, what it is like to be observing, talking to comrades and loved ones as an organizer who's based here in the US as part of your diasporic community. One of the things I think a lot about is, like- When we talk about solidarity with people's movements internationally in the US, sometimes we forget that, like, people from those diasporas are our comrades. They are here. And that we have a lot to, [00:41:00] like, learn from them. What has it been like watching the sort of, like, social movements in Bangladesh and Nepal respectively, and what has it been like to have that consciousness as an organizer here in the US dealing with all of the political stuff that we've been dealing with here? Samir: I love that you asked that question, Cayden, and also, like, yes, I just wanna start with, like, this layer of like, oh, yes, we have comrades here who are from these diasporic communities who actually can inform us in this. And to add another layer to that, even with, with my, you know, my history of being born and raised in Nepal and, like, being connected to our movements there and, like, living here for the last 20 years now, right? That also creates another layer where I don't have access to everything, and that also creates a layer of, like, that I don't have to know everything, right? And I wish our left- Mm-hmm … Western left understood that layer sometimes because – In our movements, I'm gonna go be a little– I'm gonna little shit about our movements here, you know? Because one of the things that happens is, like, the romanticization of what's going on in our homelands without understanding, and this idea- Mm-hmm of, like-like, we have to know the answers to every… It's okay to not have answers. I think that's a big thing that I reflect on a lot as somebody here, [00:42:00] right? And also, the reality is I have access to my father, who is, for me, the only revolutionary that I know who was part of, like, social movements and who, like, really spent his whole life to the movement and is now still doing things after being betrayed by his party, right? So I think that's one of the big things. I think it's okay to know that. I think the second thing for me as somebody in the diaspora, it's my role in the diaspora. It's also what is my role in the diaspora to inform my comrades. If you're an upper-caste person, it is your responsibility to name that in the movement spaces that you hold and name that layer- Mm … and inform people about that layer. I think about that a lot. I sit up, I sit with that and reflect on that a lot, and that really informs the way I show up as somebody in the diaspora. And my responsibility, one of the things that we saw when all of this was happening you know, the movements, the social movement left was so fast, got into this train of, like, it's a Color Revolution [i.e., the revolution is backed by the US government/is a US-led intervention], as if our peoples don't have the capacity to organize. Yes, there was infiltrations. Yes, India was involved. But yes, there was also uprising where 70 people died, right? So just, bringing it down to, like, it's not really being complex and, like, [00:43:00] being nuance about that. And that really is harmful to our people back home, right? Because that, in that, when we're doing that, we're taking away, like, access from our people in terms of, like, how they are doing things. And also, like, really, I think invalidating the fact that our, the governments that was being oppressing against the uprisings are oppressive. So that just, like, invisibilizes, uh, what the state is doing, right? Because it is a Color Revolution, you know. The, it is not led by the people. We're, there was even sign, things like they said, like, “Oh, there were signs in English.” Like, can you just think about, you know, the, the orientalist, uh, you know-  Cayden: Yeah …  Samir: orientalist way that you are thinking even as somebody who considers yourself a social movement left. So that's, I think, one my, that, for me, that is a big responsibility. And- And that is where I can also make an impact as somebody in the diaspora. I am not on the ground, that is the reality of it, and knowing where I can make impact and how I can make impact, and knowing very clearly that I don't have all the answers, and I'm not– I'm an outsider in so many… I go back home every time I go home for a couple of months, the way I show up in these movement spaces [00:44:00] is I'm here to listen and I'm an outsider, and I'm trying to figure out how I can support you, right? And that is, for me, a role as a diasporic person, and I'm very clear on that. And I think it's also because I have access to my dad who grounds me in that, and it's like- Mm-hmm “Samir, you don't live here anymore.” He will remind me very clearly. He's like, “You don't live here anymore.” And you need to understand that, and that's okay.” And he will ground me in that, and that really helps me in terms of thinking of how I wanna show up as a diasporic person.  Cayden: Yeah. No, that's, that's really helpful, and I think that, like, this thing that you're describing about the sort of like in some ways, like, healthy, but in other ways sort of, like, overblown skepticism that US observers can have about uprisings, revolutions in other countries just because, like… The, the word that came to mind as you were describing it was, like, infantilizing, right? That it's, like, as if people can't independently form their own political opinions without the intervention of the, like, global superpower is just sort of, like, baffling to me. You hit on something that, like, I think about a lot [00:45:00] also as somebody who is, like, a generation removed from the immigrant generation in my family. I don't have a ton of relationships with my family who are in Hong Kong and China, but, like, how do I, like how do I relate to that? It's very challenging, and it's- and I, I think that there's so much in, like, US like left social movement discourse that I'm just kind of like, “I actually don't know how to relate to this as a diasporic person sometimes.” Sharmin, I'm also interested to hear from you on this.  Sharmin: Yeah. Yeah, similarly, I feel, I feel like there is this, like, uh, relationality that it's pushing people that are here to really think about more clearly. I feel like some of the early '70s through the '90s was a very, like, symbolic type of solidarity that we had- Mm-hmm where, where, you know, we would do the cultural attire, the cultural associations, you know, the melas, which are, like, big fairs that we have in these hubs of, like, immigrant communities. And now I think the politics are coming back. Like, I think after the July uprising, [00:46:00] you actually saw solidarity actions popping up across hubs in, you know, New York and California where people were like, “Actually, this impacts me and I wanna talk about what this means. I wanna talk about the cultural and political organizations that run this local community.” And one thing that I really took back from the last two visits to Bangladesh is really learning the skills of talking to somebody who disagrees with me because-  Cayden: Hmm …  Sharmin: I think in the United States the left does not practice, being able to engage, talk, even, like, be in relationship with people that might be politically opposed to you. And so when I go to Bangladesh, I'm actually surrounded by a lot of homophobes. I'm surrounded by a lot of men who, like, support the Awami League, and I've had to kind of, like, sit in this in between of being like, “Oh, yeah, like, I actually have to learn how to debate better. I have to learn how to, like, you know, be that person that's, like, holding humanity but also holding the, the critical left analysis that I, I believed in to be right because I [00:47:00] know I'm right.” Right? And I know that, like, this is a hill that's worth dying on. And I think with Mamdani's win in, in New York, like, there's so many examples of how that, like, South Asian left politic that's actually talking about class exists- Mm-hmm.  Cayden: Yeah …  Sharmin: within the geography of our communities. And, you know, especially for, you know, Samir and I are, like, the minority South Asians, so we're not the Indian upper caste. And so for us, we're like, “This has always been the reality of our people.” They are working-class organizers. They're people who know how to talk about the intricacies of domestic labor, about the unorganized labor forces, about the people that are left out of the political agenda of our government. And so for me, like, I really take some of the lessons that DRUM [ Desis Rising Up and Moving]  is doing on the ground in New York around what it means to actually build a member base that's rooted in relationship, but also towards a North Star. And that North Star, it looks a little socialist. It looks a little working class. It looks [00:48:00] very deeply rooted in a feminist, anti-oppressive politic. And I think for someone in diaspora, that's been the biggest growth area for me, where I'm like, “How do I hold this vision and not lose hope that my people are not, like, all right-wing people that are out to, like, you know, destroy me and my people?” But we are in this center-right populous moment that will require us to do cultural shift. It will require us to do that, like, slow work of tilling the land, like Ella Baker spade work. And you know, a comrade of mine, Nafiz, who's a brilliant writer at Jamhor, when I was talking to him about processing the February elections, he was just like, “You know, I actually think, like, I'm seeing a lot of possibility right now because I saw what happened to Egypt after Tahrir Square, and I saw where Egypt went and what a military dictatorship did to that country.” And he was like, “And Bangladesh, that's not what happened to us.” And, and he was like, “And this is important for us to really reckon with how… Not to [00:49:00] say, like, ‘Oh, it could be so much more worse,' but it could be so much more worse.” And we have to work within these, like, terrains in a way that's, like, really reckoning with why are people wanting to find comfort in these right-wing religious social groups, because they are the only organized groups of people that are providing shelter and food. And so unless the left fills that gap, we are gonna see right-wing populism, and we've seen it within white supremacy here, but it translates to every Global South country, from Brazil to, you know, um, obviously South Asia. And so yeah, I just am trying to be more, like, relative in that way, where I'm like-  Cayden: Hmm Sharmin: “Oh, we're a lot more relative than we think we are.”  Cayden: Yeah. That is such a good insight about, like, having to context switch Across geography, across political context, like builds a, like a really important muscle for us as organizers. This has been an absolutely fantastic [00:50:00] conversation and I've learned so much from both of you. My one sort of like, well I have two outgoing questions and they're sort of related to one another. One is thinking about like as a monolingual English speaker, as somebody who's like in the US, I think one of the things that I've often felt a challenge around is like where do I look to for news, for updates, and for analysis about what's going on in the Global South, especially for places where I have no cultural or language connection. And like when you're assessing news and information that's coming out about movement politics. What do you consider, what do you think about, what are the questions you ask yourself when you're like seeing headlines, kinda day-to-day that you think would be useful for other folks to start thinking about? Sharmin: Yeah. I, I really think about, like, multiple nationalisms right now, that there's, like, these competing forces of, like, who gets to tell the story. And I always, like to think about, like, how, uh, US [00:51:00] interests, Chinese interests, or even, like, Indian interests are determining the news landscape right now. And I don't like to think about it, but I, I've been looking at so much coverage that feels very much like, yikes, like what is going on, with our, like, news ecosystem? And unfortunately, I think we need to get back on Facebook. Like, I think that the fact that- … progressives and the left have left Facebook, like, I get it. Fuck Meta, and Facebook is the main place for so much like organizing. And we-  Cayden: Contest every space.  Sharmin: Get back on Facebook. Who cares if there are right-wing trolls on it? You we have to create alternative like information systems that are, like, really amplifying to these networks and groups of people that are getting inundated with that information. And I think we're really lucky because there's a lot of leftist South Asian publications now, Himal South Asian, Jumphore, you could become Patreon supporter and really be a part of these legacy, South Asian [00:52:00] left, thinkers that are actually thinking about, like, the long-term arc, and they, they're contending with socialism. They're contending with the communist, like, legacies of our organizations. And so, I just really appreciate that they're doing political analysis with politics and not just focusing on, like, symbolic forms of, like, political analysis. So shout-out to them and, and their hard work because yeah, they, they're English media that is getting translated for this day and age, you know? Cayden: Yeah. I… It was really exciting to me to, like, do a lot of the sort of, like, background for this conversation and find, like, English language movement media coming out of South Asia. I was like, “This is so exciting.” Like, this is… I feel like in some ways the thing that they're trying to do is, like they're kind of our comrades- Mm-hmm in a sense, right? Like, they're trying to do a similar thing to the thing that we're trying to do at Convergence, and I was like, “Ooh, this is really cool. Like, I'm bookmarking this.” Yeah. So I don't know. Samir, do you have, do you have other thoughts about, like, what things [00:53:00] US people should be thinking about as they're kind of assessing news and developments? Samir: Yeah, big ups Himal Magazine. I think that is a big source of information for me too. And also as somebody who struggles with reading Nepali now, which I'm very embarrassed of it's really hard for me to get access. to. I have to sit with my dad to, like, really go through some of the news articles, which, you know, my dad gracefully agrees. Uh, I think one of the big things is, like, I do benefit a lot from his free labor. I'll just name that on this podcast. But I think, and one of the things I would say is like- Thanks,  Cayden: dad …  Samir: really, like, figuring out, like, I don't know, like, pushing through the binary of, like, what US imperialism means for Nepal and what also there's, there could be other forms of imperialism that I named earlier, that Sharmin named too. And also right now, I think there's a lot of unknowns for us too, right? We have this party that was not part of the political establishment that came into picture in 2024. So we are still grappling with the idea of, like, what does this mean for us? Who are they gonna be loyal to, and how does, what does this mean for geopolitics in Nepal, right? So we are still sitting with that question. And there is some clarity around, I think one of the things I would say is there's a [00:54:00] lot of excitement, even in diaspora community, and my role in the diaspora also has been talking to some of my friends who are stoked about this prime minister right now because we haven't built a left that is informing them of the nuances and, like, how we can actually figure out the critique of this person, right? Because for me, I think it's really important the social movement left to understand because even my friend, my comrades are sending me, “Oh, this rapper is a prime minister now.” It's somebody that I trust a lot, right? Yeah. And I have to do the work of like, “Hey, this person has this history of governing in this way when he became the mayor of Kathmandu, where he was against poor people,” right? He did some changes, structural changes that helped, upper middle class people. And using that as a way to, like, really assess what he's gonna do for Nepal, and I'm actually skeptical, right? He is somebody from the Madhesi movement, which is a indigenous group that is very marginalized in Nepal, but he also comes from a very upper class background, right? And that's also real. We have to name that. His party's ideology is to push us away from federalism in some sense, right? And also the reality is they had a majority, they won a majority because we didn't have a social movement left outside of political parties that would help us assess him, right? [00:55:00] So that's, I think that's the question. Those are some of the questions I would love people to ask, because I am asking those questions as somebody who is from Nepal and from the diaspora, and I check myself every time. And yeah, I will end it with, like, it's okay to not have all the answers, and just, yeah, do some of that work of, like, reflecting on, like, asking yourself how you are taking in some of the information that you're seeing. And obviously, Himal Magazine is a big source, and one of the Substacks that I would highly recommend too is, I think we could put it in the links later, it's called Kalam Weekly, which is on Substack. I have some critiques of their writing too, but that's really been helping me understand what's going on in Nepal right now.  Cayden: You both have been so incredibly generous with your time, and this has been such a rich conversation. I don't know if there are places also where if our listeners want to follow your work, I don't know, if there's organizations or places where you are publishing thoughts, either your own or organizationally that you wanna share. Sharmin, is there any place people can find you online? Sharmin: Yeah, for sure. We're building the Asian American left at 18 Million Rising, so you could follow us there, and I'm @sharminultra [00:56:00] on all social media.  Cayden: And Samir, is there a place people can find you?  Samir: Uh, yeah, I am a very quiet person. Uh, but direct action has been a big part of our struggles in the last few years, and we are really thinking about, like, how we can escalate strategically, so I am part of a network of direct action trainers called the Ruckus Society. Hit us up. We do trainings, go to our website, request a training if you need any direct action support. We love nerding out on action design and thinking about action curriculum and how we train our people to do action safely. And follow Ruckus Society, and I don't really have a social that's public, so…  Cayden: that's so fair. I respect your choice not to be perceived.  Samir: I mean, also, I'm not Sharmin, I feel I learn from her so much, from Sharmin, so I just wanna name that, and also just from how I- And  Sharmin: we're friends. Like, we, we've done direct actions together. Like, we've been arrested together. Like-  Cayden: Yeah. …  Sharmin: we're comrades, so it's just so fun to be able to talk about this- Well, I really-  Cayden: Yeah …  Yeah. Thanks again, Sharmin, Samir. Absolutely a pleasure to talk, and I'm, I'm sure we'll talk again soon.  Sharmin: Talk soon. [00:57:00] Thank you, guys.  Samir:

On today's Labor Radio Podcast Daily: Labor Radio on KBOO talks with workers organizing at Real You Electrolysis Workers United and the pushback they've faced from management. In labor history, Mexico abolished the siesta in 1944. Quote of the day: Ella Baker. @wpfwdc @AFLCIO #1u #UnionStrong #LaborRadioPod Proud founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Produced by Chris Garlock, Patrick Dixon and Harold Phillips.

This one is different. No guest. Just me—and the truth I can't stop sitting with.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is gone. Not weakened. Not under threat. Gone. The legal architecture that turned 7% Black voter registration in Mississippi into 60%—dismantled, decision by decision, by a Supreme Court that was never neutral and was never on our side.But that's not even the whole story. Because while the courts were killing the VRA, the Justice Department was being turned into a weapon. FBI agents raided a Black state senator's office mid-day—Fox News already on the scene—while allies under federal investigation had their evidence destroyed. Ballots from Fulton County are in federal custody. Arizona. Michigan. They are building the architecture of election interference before the midterms. In public. And most people don't even know it's happeningThis episode is about all of it. The Proud Boys as a militia. The Roberts Court as an antidemocratic enforcement mechanism. The Southern Strategy, sixty years old and running on steroids. And the organizing tradition—Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Hungary's opposition movement—that proves rigged maps can be beaten and stolen futures can be reclaimed.This is the class I didn't want to have to teach. But you need it. Pull up.SHOW NOTESThe death of the Voting Rights Act—Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Brnovich v. DNC (2021), and the April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which Justice Elena Kagan called "all but a dead letter."The pardon of 1,500+ January 6th participants and the DOJ's move to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders.The FBI raid on Fulton County's election center, the subpoenas targeting Arizona and Michigan 2024 ballots, and what it means for the midterms.The mid-day FBI raid on Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas's office, with Fox News cameras already rolling—and not one charge filed.The two-tier justice system in plain sight: evidence destroyed for allies, prosecutions launched against opponents.Elie Mystal's proposal to add 20 justices to structurally change the Supreme Court's incentive for extremism.How Hungary's opposition built 208 local chapters and 50,000 poll watchers—and won a supermajority against a gerrymandered map.The Afrofuturist tradition of Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin as the organizing inheritance we carry forward.Black Power War Room — blackpowerwarroom.com National Black Justice Coalition — nbjc.org NBJC Equity Week — nbjc.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.

In this episode, we revisit a Black Myths classic: Black People Died to Vote. Due to the recent supreme court decision on (LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS ET AL.) that effectively ends majority Black districts across the south, voting rights is back in the public discourse. Although well-intentioned by most, the often-heard retort that "Black People Died to Vote" distorts the history of struggle around the vote. It reduces Black death to the vote itself, not the broader struggle for liberation.    In this episode, we explore the history surrounding the vote throughout Black history with a particular focus on Ella Baker and her work in the civil rights movement. Fun fact: this was actually the first episode the current cast of co-hosts had ever recorded together. 

Every February, the United States celebrates Black History Month. But in recent years, the celebration might have felt a bit different. On January 31, 2025, the Department of Defense announced it would no longer use official resources to celebrate cultural awareness months, including Black History Month, which began the following day. That announcement came after the Trump administration's rollback of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives within the federal government. This hour, we listen back to our conversation with a panel of experts talking about Black History Month and what it means today. GUESTS: Kevin Gaines: Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice and former Interim Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia. Christina Greer: Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University Michael Harriot: founder of ContrabandCamp and bestselling author of Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America. In this episode, the guests mention several Black Americans who have made an impact on U.S. history. Here are some of the names if you want to learn more: Ella Baker, Mary McLeod Bethune, George Washington Carver, James Chaney, Septima Clark, John Henrik Clarke, David Dennis Sr, Fannie Lou Hamer, Steven Henson, bell hooks, Barbara Jordan, Garrett Morgan, Constance Baker Motley, Gloria Naylor, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Gloria Richardson, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Jo Ann Robinson, Cleveland Sellers, Robert Smalls, the students in the court case Edwards v. South Carolina, Ida B. Wells-Barnett Special thanks to our former interns Angelica Gajewski and Kathy Wang. This episode originally aired on February 28, 2025.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2026 has been a ROUGH start but were going to take this energy and transmute it into something positive. This week we're discussing the honorable Ella Baker and her contributions to the civil rights movement, why learning new hobbies keeps you young and a few wise words to take into 2026 to keep you on track.

Pastor Garrett sets the stage for "I've Got the Power" by presenting the approach to change and empowerment embodied by Ella Baker.

This week on Labor History Today, we head to Philadelphia with an excerpt from the Labor Jawn podcast. Hosts Sam and Gabe talk with labor historian Dr. Francis Ryan about Philly's central role in U.S. labor history, why working-class stories are often erased, and what today's movement can learn from the city's past. Plus, on Labor History in 2:00: the birth of civil rights organizer Ella Baker in 1903. Questions, comments, or suggestions are welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory  

While each period is historically unique, veterans and scholars of the civil rights movement say there are some important similarities between the era of Jim Crow and racial segregation and our current moment. One similarity, as author and professor Joshua Clark Davis notes, is the role that local law enforcement plays in enforcing regimes of racial oppression and attacking the movements opposed to them. But, as civil rights Icon Judy Richardson argues, there are also critical similarities when it comes to organizing and executing successful resistance efforts then and now. In this extended episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Richardson and Davis about the hardwon lessons from the civil rights movement that must be applied to the growing anti-authoritarianism movement today. Guests:Judy Richardson is an American documentary filmmaker and civil rights activist. She was an early participant in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966 and was mentored by Ella Baker. Richardson was the educational director for the PBS docuseries Eyes on the Prize, widely recognized as the most important documentary ever produced on the Civil Rights movement, and she co-edited the book Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts By Women in SNCC. She was a distinguished visiting lecturer of Africana Studies at Brown University.Joshua Clark Davis is associate professor of US history at the University of Baltimore. He's the author of multiple books, including Police Against The Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back, a retelling of the civil rights movement through its overlooked work against police violence—and the police who attacked the movement with surveillance, undercover agents, and retaliatory prosecutions.Additional resources:Joshua Clark Davis, Princeton University Press, Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought BackJudy Richardson, “SNCC changed me forever”Credits:Producer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: Cameron GranadinoAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankFollow The Marc Steiner Show on Spotify Follow The Marc Steiner Show on Apple PodcastsHelp us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterFollow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

When everything feels like it's unraveling, how do we know art still matters? In this episode, we explore the question: What use is art in a world on fire?Across movements, across generations—from Ella Baker's quiet revolution to Beckett's unexpected presence in a prison theater—this episode offers three simple, potent reminders of how art works in times of chaos: to notice, to connect, and to rebuild trust. Whether you're an artist, organizer, or simply someone searching for clarity, you'll find resonance in these stories.Discover how art helps us pay attention—to our world, our neighbors, and ourselves.Understand the power of creative trust—what happens when making becomes a shared act of listening.Explore how storytelling and performance can bridge divides, even behind bars or across ideologies.Press play to be reminded that in uncertain times, art doesn't just survive—it leads. Listen now and carry these three truths forward into your community.Notable Mentions:PeopleBill Cleveland: Host of Art Is Change and Director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community. (Learn more)Ella Baker: Civil rights activist whose words inspired Ella's Song. (Learn more)Bernice Johnson Reagon: Composer of Ella's Song and founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock. (Learn more)Judy Munson: Composer and sound designer for the podcast. (Learn more)Donald Trump: Referenced in the context of political polarization. (Learn more)Samuel Beckett: Playwright of Waiting for Godot; supported San Quentin production. (Learn more)Jan Jönson: Swedish director who brought Beckett's play to San Quentin. (Learn more)Jim Carlson: Prison arts advocate involved in the San Quentin project. (Learn more)Barney Rosset: Beckett's U.S. publisher. (Learn more)Donald James: Actor who played Vladimir in the San Quentin production. (Learn more)Reginald Wilson: Actor who played Estragon in the San Quentin production. (Learn more)Brian Boyd: Author of On the Origin of Stories. (Learn more)Voltaire: Philosopher often linked with the quote popularized by Spider-Man. (Learn more)Events & ProjectsWaiting for Godot at San Quentin: 1988 prison arts project with lifers performing...

In this episode of the Wolff Peace series, host Avis Kalfsbeek explores Karl Marx's concept of alienated labor and pairs it with the real-life work of Ella Baker, civil rights organizer and community-based changemaker. Together, they help us understand the importance of meaningful work, grassroots power, and reclaiming our full humanity in the face of dehumanizing systems. Robert Paul Wolff's Political Man and Social Man is available on Amazon (I'm not an affiliate) Learn more about the series and my books at aviskalfsbeek.com Follow my Kickstarter please: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter Music: Dalai Llama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez. Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW Try my voice clone “Amaya Calm” on Eleven Labs for your audio book or other creative project: https://try.elevenlabs.io/peace (If you use this link, I earn a small commission)

In this powerful Foremother Friday episode, Vanessa sets the tone with a reflective porch meditation inspired by the wisdom and resilience of Ella Baker. Morgan then takes listeners on a journey of empowerment, teaching how to call on the names of our foremothers in times of struggle and offering a practical 101 guide on running for office. Our homegirl, Trelani returns to share ancestral wisdom. As we close the week on a high note, trekkers earn their Ella Baker badge, marking their steps forward in honoring history and shaping the future. This episode is a celebration of legacy, leadership, and the transformative power of knowing our history. 

Langston Hughes, the great African American poet, said decades ago, “Fascism is a new name for that kind of terror the Negro has always faced in America.” Fascism can and has led to genocide. Progressive African American intellectuals, writers, poets, and musicians have had a long tradition and history of solidarity and resisting fascism and genocide, from Frederick Douglass to Gil Scott-Heron, from Sojourner Truth to Angela Davis, from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Lewis, from Paul Robeson to Amiri Baraka, from Ida B. Wells to Malcolm X, from Ella Baker to Dr. King, from Harry Belafonte to Sonny Rollins, from James Baldwin to Cornel West and up to the present moment where Robin D. G. Kelley warns “We're witnessing the consolidation of a fascist police state.” Recorded at the University of Massachusetts.

Was hätte Ella Baker wohl zu einem Amerika unter Donald Trump gesagt? In ihrem Feature erinnert Autorin Martina Groß an die 1986 verstorbene Bürgerrechtlerin. Damals ging es vor allem um das Wahlrecht für Schwarze. Ella Baker, die elegante Hüte trug und sich kleidete, als ginge sie in die Kirche, war überzeugt davon, dass nur das Kollektiv wirklich mächtig sei. In ihrem Kampf um Freiheit war sie ständig unterwegs, um die Menschen zu mobilisieren und miteinander zu vernetzten. Was von diesem Engagement hat bis heute überdauert? Frühere und heutige Bürgerrechtsaktivistinnen und -aktivisten kommen zu Wort. Von Martina Groß SWR 2023

Allen Ruff speaks with David McNally about Trump's real estate plans for Gaza, the attacks on universities, Tesla Takedown, and the model organizing of Ella Baker. The post David McNally Unpacks Two Months of the Trump Presidency appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

If you enjoy these history lessons please follow, like, share, and subscribe for future videos. My YouTube channel is Sunny Sharma‪@IndiaInsightMovement‬ and my podcast is “India Insight with Sunny Sharma”This short era of immense change began with the critical case of Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 that established separate but not equal is unconstitutional. This marked a significant constitutional victory in favor of an integrationist approach which led to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement which was launched through the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama in 1955-1956. The revolutionary approach, depending upon who you ask, of active nonviolent Civil Disobedience led by such figures as Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, Reverend James Lawson, and Bayard Rustin was the leading philosophical and practical approach to integrate public institutions in America including restaurants, schools, and public transportation. This period was characterized by immense grassroots movements led by coalitions of very diverse groups of people welcomed by a more inclusive approach. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founded by Dr. King in 1957 revolved around nonviolent civil disobedience as a protest strategy and the goal of achieving full democratic participation through legal protections for the vote. The young John Lewis and Ella Baker, major leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), demanded not just more radical change and group centered leadership while also endorsing Dr. King's methods, but they also represented a cognitive and philosophical shift that many leaders such as Dr. King would take after 1966. These shifts occurred due to frustrations from the inability to change the fundamental political and economic conditions of African Americans despite legislative victories such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This tension resulted in the rise of black nationalism, cultural nationalism, and black power movements which influenced many young people to leave the integrationist fold. However, the two most influential black power groups the Black Panthers and partly Black Electoral Politics were not as comprehensive systems compared to the moral tactics and philosophy of Dr. King. Nonetheless, these black power movements, along with Malcolm X who will be discussed in part 2 of We Shall Overcome, have certainly captured the imagination of many young people while inspiring a black artistic and cultural movement to contribute to black expression and excellence even if their approach was somewhat limited when compared to integration. Still, integration was meant for the meaningful realization of full equality and equity with whites and it was clear that Western civilization not only has structural political and economic barriers to the advancement of colored people, it was also in a crisis. This is why, after 1966, Dr. King viewed that black people were in danger of “integrating into a burning house.” However, his Letter from a Birmingham Jail of 1963 stood the test of time as still relevant today to freedom fighters around the globe of the need to break unjust laws, force the moderates into action against perceived injustice, the reclamation of the social justice function of institutions or to see their degeneration, and so much more. In the next section, I will discuss some of the major movements to shift black consciousness later in the period from 1954-1975 such as Malcolm X, the black panthers, and the movement to elect black political figures many of whom were freedom fighters in the 1970s. The question is why did Malcolm X shift to a black nationalist international perspective and were these movement's goal to protect, enrich the black community, and form an independent black politics successful in hindsight?

As we launch Women's History Month, Rev. Dr. Andriette invites us to draw inspiration from two bold voices of activism—Ella Baker and Jane Fonda. These women stood for justice, human dignity, and understood the dynamism of collective action. Moreover, they spoke Truth to power. What can we do today to embody their courage and commitment? Through a spiritual lens, we'll explore how their wisdom calls us to deepen our faith, lift our voices, and move boldly in alignment with Truth. Join us as we honor their legacy and ignite our own capacity to create a world rooted in love, equity, and transformation.

Every February, the United States celebrates Black History Month. But this year, the celebration might feel a bit different. On January 31st, the Department of Defense announced it would no longer use official resources to celebrate cultural awareness months, including Black History Month, which began the following day. That announcement came after the Trump administration's rollback of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives within the federal government. This hour, we’re joined by a panel of experts to talk about Black History Month and what it means today. GUESTS: Kevin Gaines: Julian Bond Professor of Civil Rights and Social Justice and Interim Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia. Christina Greer: Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University Michael Harriot: founder of ContrabandCamp and bestselling author of Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America In this episode, the guests mention several Black Americans who have made an impact on U.S. history. Here are some of the names if you want to learn more: Ella Baker, Mary McLeod Bethune, George Washington Carver, James Chaney, Septima Clark, John Henrik Clarke, David Dennis Sr, Fannie Lou Hamer, Steven Henson, bell hooks, Barbara Jordan, Garrett Morgan, Constance Baker Motley, Gloria Naylor, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Gloria Richardson, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Jo Ann Robinson, Cleveland Sellers, Robert Smalls, The students in the court case Edwards v. South Carolina, Ida B. Wells-BarnettSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rita Omokha is a journalist and the author of the new book “Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America.” She takes us on a journey through history, sharing stories of powerful young Black activists — past and present — whose courage and determination have reshaped America’s fight for justice, and connects them to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plus, she explores her own experience of racial politics in the U.S. as a Nigerian-American — particularly after the murder of George Floyd. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joy for AllLuke 2:10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:10 NRSV)I don't know about you but every time I see the words “fear not” in scripture, I immediately start to fear! Some suggest that it was the sudden appearance of an angel while going about their daily business that alarmed them; others believe that it was the glory of the Lord that frightened them, and still others maintain that it was likely the pronouncement itself that terrified them. But the truth is it's all speculation because any or all of these things could be the reason that the shepherds were afraid. What I do know is that there is so much to fear in this world. Fear of violence and war. Fear of the loss of basic civil liberties and protections. Fear of poverty. Fear of deportation. Fear of climate change. Unfortunately, even fear of our differences. Sometimes it feels like there is no safe place to run to for shelter in this world without the threat of fear. Yet the angel says, “Do not fear, I bring good news of great joy for all people.” The angel didn't come to bring fear or further insecurity. It said, “I've come with good news, and it's for all people.” Not for some of us. But for all of us.Regardless of our nationality, gender, orientation, economic status, age, or religious affiliation, it's for all. That's the beauty of the good news—it's not limited and includes all of God's creation. So as we wait with eager expectation this Advent season, let's work toward a world where all of God's people will be free from fear and benefit from these good tidings of joy. For as the great Ella Baker proclaimed, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it happens.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Common Good podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and structures of belonging.This 8 weeks series consists of mini episodes which are being produced in partnership with The Hive, A Center for Contemplation, Art, and Action, as a part of an ongoing class they're offering locally called Election Brave Space: Compassionate Resilience For Our Shared Future. The intention of these episode is to introduce a variety of simple tools and practices to help you navigate this politically tumultuous moment, leading to and through the election.D. Lamar Hughes is a gifted speaker, poet, leadership coach, and community organizer. Holding a BA from Bluffton University and an MA from Bowling Green State University, he co-creates and uses his education in communication and organizing for the Future Change Makers Movement. Born and raised in Northwest Ohio, D. is a passionate advocate dedicated to fostering inclusivity and driving positive change through faith, mindfulness, anti-racism, group facilitation, and community organizing. Hughes believes that unleashing the power of unity by bridging gaps and breaking barriers across diverse communities will build a world where acceptance thrives and positive transformation blooms.Chris La Rue has been the Executive Director of The Hive since 2023. As the “chief storyteller,” Chris seeks to amplify the story of transformation The Hive has to tell: one in which people integrate the wisdom of our contemplative traditions in ways that make meaningful collective change possible. He believes that The Hive is uniquely positioned to create a better world by helping individuals find their people, and find their practice.Resources Mentioned:#5. Ella Baker, Septima Clark, and The Highlander Folk (ft. Stephen Lazar and Daniel Marshall) on Lost Prophets: A Podcast About the Voices We Need to Hear Again with Pete David & Elias CrimWhere Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.The Hive is a grassroots mindfulness community curating multi-week classes, workshops and a Membership community. It has been formed by facilitators asking the question, "What are the resources that lie within our vast lineages, traditions, and modalities of healing, and how can we place them in service of the common good?" In this series we're hearing from The Hive's 6 core faculty members and The Hive's Executive Director.This episode was produced by Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Gorman. You can find more information about the Common Good Collective here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live & Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation.

Episode 14 of Fragile Juggernaut is the first of our trio of regional episodes. It dials into New York City, the seat of the country's largest manufacturing base, but one composed of a vast constellation of small and diverse shops; and also host to the nation's largest port, transport system, white collar and cultural complex, and more. With the eminent historian Joshua Freeman, Gabe and Ben talk about worker organizing outside the CIO cast–public transit workers, teachers, laundry workers and domestics–as well as what made New York City, a non-fordist city in the age of Ford, so exemplary compared to other parts of the country. The episode features James Baldwin and Truman Capote; Irish dance halls and cruising on the piers; burial societies, Tammany Hall, and clandestine organizations; the origins of bodegas and how the mob got rackets into organized labor; the trade union origins of “Strange Fruit”; Ella Baker and Esther Cooper Jackson; the IRA and Broadway musicals; how transit workers built their union campaigning against big squeegees; the hybrid combinations of craft and industrial unionism; and the limits to workplace organization in a city defined by tremendous ethnic, religious, and neighborhood segmentation. Featured music: “I Ain't Got Nobody” by Count Basie; “It's Better With A Union Man” by Pins and Needles Orchestra; “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday; “The Boys of the Lough” by Michael Coleman; “Talking Sailor” by Woody Guthrie; “One Big Union for Two” by the Pins and Needles Orchestra; “New York Town” by Woody Guthrie.Archival audio credits: Esther Cooper Jackson discusses domestic work research; Mike Quill debates Rep. Fred Hartley on ABC news; longshoreman and sailor Stan Weir describes conservatizing effects of the racket on the docks. Fragile Juggernaut is a Haymarket Originals podcast exploring the history, politics, and strategic lessons of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the rank and file insurgency that produced it. Support Fragile Juggernaut on Patreon and receive our exclusive bimonthly newsletter, full of additional insights, reading recommendations, and archival materials we've amassed along the way. Buy Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 20% Off: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/991-organized-labor-and-the-black-worker-1619-1981

Joey Taylor & Sam Pressler speak with Pete Davis about Join or Die, which he directed with Rebecca Davis.The Lost Prophets PodcastPete's Interview with SamDedicated by Pete DavisBowling Alone by PutnamThe Upswing by PutnamSum of Us by McGheeAgainst Everyone with Conner Habib PodcastWeird Studies PodcastLindy Effect - Nicholas Nassim TalebThe MaintainersQuest for Community by NisbetFebruary 2nd, 1968 by Wendell Berry Small is Beautiful by SchumacherThe Creation of the American Republic by WoodOur Divided Political Heart by DionneTriplets of Evil Speech by KingBoy in the Bubble by Paul SimonJane Macelevy, Eddie Glaude, Frederick Law Olmsted, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Jane Jacobs, Buckminster Fuller, Ralph Nader, Paul Goodman, Ella Baker, Ivan Illich, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, Marshal McLuhan, Tony Judt, Thomas Merton, Michael Lind, Frank Capra, Elias Krim, Roberto Unger, Alexis De Tocqueville, Priya Parker

País Estados Unidos Dirección George C. Wolfe Guion Dustin Lance Black, Julian Breece. Historia: Julian Breece Reparto Colman Domingo Aml Ameen Glynn Turman Chris Rock Gus Halper Música Branford Marsalis Fotografía Tobias A. Schliessler Sinopsis Bayard Rustin, artífice de la trascendental marcha de Washington de 1963, es uno de los activistas y estrategas más notables de la historia. Siempre desafiante, Rustin nunca pidió perdón por ser como era, por sus creencias ni por su orientación sexual. Jamás dio un paso atrás. Hizo historia... y su recompensa fue caer en el olvido. Junto a otros gigantes de la talla de Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr. y Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin se atrevió a imaginar un mundo distinto e inspiró todo un movimiento en una marcha hacia la libertad.

From the very beginning of The Practice, we have always appreciated the important lessons we can learn from various Christian traditions throughout the history of the Church. This summer, we will spend time learning about our sisters and brothers, some you may know and others you may not. We hope to not only learn about them, but also to listen to what they might have to teach us in this day and age.   This week, Juliet Liu invited us consider the example of Ella Baker. In her life and work, Ella might show us how our contemplation to move us to action. She would teach us to take seriously the dignity of all people, even the most ordinary. And she would encourage us not to dispair but to find hope in the people who point us toward joy. You can find the images we used for visio divina here (The Saints of Selma and a photo of Ella Baker.) For additional resources, please visit our website. If The Practice Church is your home community, please join the Core Team. If The Practice Church has been meaningful to your journey, would you consider a tax-deductible gift? You can give at https://thepracticechurch.com/give/ 

The dynamic and engaging Socialism 2024 conference will meet in Chicago from August 30 through September 2, shortly after the sure-to-be chaotic Democratic National Convention, bringing together thousands of socialists, activists, abolitionists, and organizers from across the country and around the world to name this political moment, build community, and gather strength for the struggles ahead. We hope you will join us. In anticipation of the coming gathering we're looking back to the spirited Socialism 2023 conference, and highlighting an inspiring and relevant intergenerational conversation between legendary scholar-activist Barbara Ransby and the peace and justice organizer/activist Asha Ransby Sporn.

In celebration of Juneteenth, political commentator Eddie Glaude Jr. discusses his newest book, We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For that explores how ordinary people, through the examples of leading Black Americans Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Ella Baker, have the capacity to achieve a more just and perfect democracy. Thomas Donnelly, chief content officer at the National Constitution Center, hosts the discussion. Resources: Eddie S. Glaude Jr., We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For, (2024) Juneteenth Stay Connected and Learn More: Questions or comments about the show? Email us at programs@constitutioncenter.org Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate. Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen. Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube. Support our important work. Donate

Welcome to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Madang Podcast⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠ Madang is the outdoor living room of the world. Here, we invite you to sit and tune into unreserved, remarkable conversations with renown authors, leaders, public figures and scholars on religion, culture and everything in-between. This has been a dream of mine for many years and now it is a reality. Please join me at Madang Podcast hosted by the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Christian Century⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. This is the 40th Episode where I converse with Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr., on his book, We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For . Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University. He is a New York Times bestselling author, winner of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Book Prize and frequently appears in the media as an MSNBC contributor on programs like Morning Joe and Deadline: White House. On this episode, Glaude talks about We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking, Malcolm X, Dr. King, Ella Baker, Black leadership, family relationships and so much more. I am grateful to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Homebrewed Christianity⁠⁠ and 1001 New Worshipping Communities for sponsorsing this episode. Please check out their website for their work, events and to donate. Register for ⁠⁠Homebrewed Christianity Theology Beer Camp.⁠⁠ Meet 1001 New Worshipping Communities⁠ at the Wild Goose Festival where they will be sponsoring a tent called, "Tent of Make Believe." Please reach out to me if you would like to sponsor the next episode of Madang podcast. Or simply ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠support me here. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/grace-ji-sun-kim/support

We are incredibly honored to host Marlene Sanchez, the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. As the Executive Director of theElla Baker Center for Human Rights, Marlene is a proud San Francisco native, and Chicana, where she has spent more than 20 years building power with youth and formerly incarcerated people. Through her work, Marlene has created pathways to invest in the leadership of people directly impacted by the criminal legal system and helped center the voices of young people to bring youth justice. For the past decade, she has helped pass policies focused on youth justice, reproductive justice, LGBTQ discrimination, police accountability, and sentencing reform. Marlene came to community work at age 15 looking for employment and a way out of the juvenile justice system. She is the result of change through a resourced community.  In this episode, we discuss how incarceration breaks families and communities apart and it's not the answer to keeping communities safe.  The United States prison system has the highest incarcerated population of brown and black men, and the legacy of prison systems stems from slavery and economic exploitation that this country was built upon. (Author, Nicole Hannah Jones mentions within the first chapters of her book, The 1619 project,) By holding accountability of elected officials, for housing, jobs and healthcare, instead of increasing funding to police and prison job creations, the Ella Baker Center has created impactful policy reform, recognizing their instrumental role in the passage of the Racial Justice Act. As we transition to the crucial topic of voting rights, we spotlight the advocacy groups like All of Us or None and Initiate Justice, tirelessly championing the electoral voice of the incarcerated. Ella Baker herself was the champion of civil rights and justice by fighting racisim and organizing the first non-violent youth movements, for the civil rights movement and championing our power to vote.  Marlene shares with us an open invitation to join the Ella Baker Center's newly launched membership program, starting May 22nd, here in Oakland California and online, to provide opportunities for you to participate or support their upcoming political organizing initiative and “Get The Vote Out” training programs for the summer of 2024. Marlene is a testament to the power of community activism in shaping a democracy that truly represents us all. Gracias Marlene. 

We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures) by Eddie Glaude Jr. https://amzn.to/3JQZWyM We are more than the circumstances of our lives, and what we do matters. In We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For, one of the nation's preeminent scholars and a New York Times bestselling author, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., makes the case that the hard work of becoming a better person should be a critical feature of Black politics. Through virtuoso interpretations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Ella Baker, Glaude shows how we have the power to be the heroes that our democracy so desperately requires. Based on the Du Bois Lectures delivered at Harvard University, the book begins with Glaude's unease with the Obama years. He felt then, and does even more urgently now, that the excitement around the Obama presidency constrained our politics as we turned to yet another prophet-like figure. He examines his personal history and the traditions that both shape and overwhelm his own voice. Glaude weaves anecdotes about his evolving views on Black politics together with the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, encouraging us to reflect on the lessons of these great thinkers and address imaginatively the challenges of our day in voices uniquely our own. Narrated with passion and philosophical intensity, this book is a powerful reminder that if American democracy is to survive, we must step out from under the shadows of past giants to build a better society―one that derives its strength from the pew, not the pulpit.

Gathering an array of recognized names as well as new discoveries, our guest today Janet Dewart Bell, in her new book curates two centuries of stirring public addresses by Black women, from Harriet Tubman and Ella Baker to Barbara Lee and Barbara Jordan. These speakers explore ethics, morality, courage, authenticity, and leadership, highlighting Black women speaking truth to power in service of freedom and justice. The book is called Blackbirds Singing: Inspiring Black Women's Speeches from the Civil War to the Twenty-first Century. — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Inspiring Black Women's Speeches from the Civil War to the Twenty-first Century w/ Janet Dewart Bell appeared first on KPFA.

We start with our featured idealist Ella Baker, who was a “doer” in the civil rights movement of the 1930's to 1960's, and who worked behind the scenes to strengthen the NAACP and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (which orchestrated lunch counter protests). Ella is one of the unsung heroes who made things happen! The…

Fast food is part of American life. As much a part of our background as the sky and the clouds. But it wasn't always that way, and over the decades, the fast food landscape has changed in quite profound ways. Race is a key part of that picture. A landmark exploration of this has been published by today's guest, Dr. Naa Oyo Kwate. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University. Her book, recently published, is entitled White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food From Black Exclusion to Exploitation. The book has been received very positively by the field. And was recently named the best book in the field of urban affairs by the Urban Affairs Association.   Interview Summary I was so happy to see your book because people have talked about the issue of race off and on in the field, but to see this kind of scholarly treatment of it like you provided has been really a welcome addition. Let me start with a general question. Let's begin with the fast food situation today and then rewind to where it began. Are there patterns to where fast food restaurants are located and who fast food is marketed to? Absolutely. There's quite a bit of research, and you just alluded to the work that's been done in the field. There's a lot of research that shows fast food is most dense in African American communities. Not every study has the same finding, but overall that's what the accumulated evidence shows. On the one hand you have the fact that Black communities are disproportionately saturated with these outlets. Then there's also the case that apart from the physical locations of the restaurants, fast food is strongly racialized as Black in terms of how it's portrayed to the public. It [Fast Food] relies on images of Blackness and Black cultural productions such as Black music for its marketing. These sometimes these veer into racial caricature as well. One of the things I talked about in the book briefly is the TV commercial character Annie who Popeye's introduced in 2009. They basically created this Black woman that Adweek at the time was calling "feisty," but it's really just this stereotypical idea of the sassy Black woman and she's in the kitchen frying up the chicken for Popeye's. And actually, some of the language that was used in those commercials really evokes the copy on late 19th century and Aunt Jemima pancake mix packaging. It's a really strong departure from fast food's early days, the way that fast food is now relying on Blackness as part of its core marketing constructs. I'm assuming that it follows from what you've been saying that the African American community has disproportionately been targeted with the marketing of these foods. Is that true of children within that community? Research shows that in terms of fast food marketing at the point of purchase. There's more - display advertising for example at restaurants that are in Black communities. And then there's also been research to show, not in terms of the outlets themselves, but in terms of TV programming that there tends to be more commercials for fast food and other unhealthy foods during shows that are targeting Black youth. How much of the patterning of the fast food restaurants is due to income or due to the amount of fast food consumption in these areas with many restaurants? Almost none of it really. It's not income and it's not the amount of fast food that people are consuming. In fact, one of the main studies that led me to start researching this book, because I was coming to it from public health where there was a lot of research around the disproportionality of fast food restaurants. We actually did a study in New York City, some colleagues and we published it in 2009, where we looked at how fast food was distributed across New York City's five boroughs. And restaurant density, we found, was due almost entirely to racial demographics. There's very little contribution from income. So, the percentage of Black residents was what was driving it. That was the biggest predictor of where fast food was located. It wasn't income, income made very little contribution and if you compared Black neighborhoods that were higher in income to those that were lower in income, they basically had about as much fast food exposure. Then if you compare them to white neighborhoods matched in income, Black neighborhoods still had more. So, it wasn't income, it was race. There are other areas that were high in fast food density like Midtown and downtown Manhattan where you have commercial and business districts, transportation hubs, tourist destinations. So, you expect fast food to be in these really dense and kind of busy commercial areas, but the only residential space that had comparable density were Black and brown neighborhoods. The assumption that many people have is that, okay, well if it's not income, then it's probably demand. So probably fast food is just dense in those neighborhoods because Black people eat so much fast food. But again, the data do not bear that out, not just in our study, but in others. And in fact, apart from the study we did specifically on fast food, we did another study where we looked at retail redlining for a number of different kinds of retail sectors. And again, demand is not what situates, you know, where stores are or are not. And then when I got to this project, just digging through the archives, you find that until the industry really went in on targeted advertising to increase the numbers of visits that Black people were making to fast food restaurants and the average check size that they were spending, Black consumers were mostly using fast food as a quick snack, it wasn't a primary place for meals. So it's really the case that the restaurants proceeded the demand and not the inverse. It is an absolutely fascinating picture. My guess is that what you've just said will probably come as a surprise to some people who are listening to this, not that fast food isn't dense in particular neighborhoods, but that it's particularly dense in neighborhoods by race just because people generally think that fast food is popular everywhere. So, let's talk about why this occurred and dive a little more deeply into what your book does and that's to provide a historical view on how and why this evolved. So, what did the early history look like and then what happened? So, the book traces what's basically a national story, but I focus particularly on certain cities like Chicago, New York and DC. But it's tracing how fast food changed racially and spatially from the early 1900's to the present. I break out that early history into what I call first and second-generation chains. So, they opened in urban and suburban areas respectively. The birth of the first generation fast food restaurants took place in what is termed the Nader of race relations in the US from the end of the Civil War to the 1930s. So, this is a time during which you see Plessy versus Ferguson, for example, ushering in legal segregation. Lynchings are at their worst. You have the destruction of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That's taking place and other notable incidents and forces that were undermining Black life at the time. It's during that context that the first generation restaurants are born. And so, these are burger chains like White Castle, that was the first actually big burger chain. People often assume it's McDonald's, but it's actually White Castle in 1921. And then there are knockoffs of White Castle, like White Tower and Little Tavern, which was an East coast brand. And then there were also other restaurants that were not burger chains, but more like hot shops was more of a sit-down restaurant. And then you had Horn and Hardart, the outlets where they had auto mats. So, you know, this was kind of high tech at the time, but you would go in and the food was behind little glass compartments and you would put in your requisite number of nickels and then take out your little plate of food. These were all the restaurants that I'm calling first generation restaurants. So, you had quite a bit of diversity in terms of what they were serving, but they were all in urban centers. They were not franchised. They were corporate owned outlets and most importantly everything about them was white, whether figuratively in terms of who dined and worked there or literally in the architecture and the design and the name like White Castle. That veneer of whiteness was doing two things. On the one hand, trying to offer the promise of pristine sanitary conditions because this is a time when food production was rife with concerns. And then also it's trying to promise a kind of unsullied social whiteness in the dining experience. So, first generation then leads to second generation fast food, which begins in the suburbs instead of the urban centers. Second generation fast food starts to grow in the early 1950s. These are the brand names that are most synonymous with fast food today: KFC, Burger King, McDonald's. So, for example, Ray Crock launches McDonald's as a franchise in the all white suburb of Des Plaines outside Chicago near O'Hare airport. And he set to fly over prospective sites looking for church steeples and schools, which to him were an indication of a middle class and stable community, but of course, racializing that as white. Because you could have Black neighborhoods with church steeples, but that was not where the restaurants were going. So, what ends up happening with second generation fast food is that it takes this theme of purity and shifts so that it's not just the purity of simple kind of fuel for the working man, but instead the purity of white domestic space. And where first-generation restaurants targeted working adults, the second went after families and children. Fast food then becomes more than just food - it's about fun. Those are the two key ways to think about the early history. One could obviously find many, many, many examples of different racial groups being excluded from the economic mainstream of the country. For example, areas of employment, and my guess is that being excluded from the marketing applied to consumer goods and lots of other things. But do you think there's something special about food in this context? Oh, that's a good question. It's interesting because fast food. It's food, but it's more than that the way that fast food initially excluded Black people. One of the things I talk about in the early part of the book is James Baldwin going to a restaurant and trying to order a burger and being rejected and facing discrimination. And the idea that it's not just that you can't get a burger, it's not the same thing as if you try to buy, I don't know, a ham sandwich or something. But like what burger means something more than that, right? It's bigger than a burger is Ella Baker said. Fast food is kind of like the closest thing we have to a national meal. It sort of occupies a special place in the heart of America and is symbolic of this quintessential all-American meal. And the notions of a good and simple life that we purportedly have in this country. So, it means more I think the way that fast food was positioned as something that was totally wrapped up in this exclusionary whiteness. Your book traces the long pathway that fast food traveled going from exclusion in the beginning and then later exploitation. Can you describe a couple of the key turning points? Well I would say that it wasn't like a light sort of got switched on that caused fast food to shift abruptly from utterly excluding Black people to then pursuing them full throttle the next day. It was quite a long and bumpy pathway and really American retailers in general have continually had to discover Black consumers and the fact that they exist over and over. And then sort of trying to think like, oh, how do we reach them? We don't understand them, like they're this enigma kind of thing. Fast food was doing the same kind of thing. There was both what the industry was doing and then there were also pull factors that were causing fast food to be drawn into Black communities as well. There are a lot of turning points, but I would say if you start fairly early in the history, a key one was after second generation fast food got going. Where suburban fast food right, is trying to position itself as this white utopia. But almost immediately that notion was fraught and unstable because concerns quickly arose around teenagers. They were money makers but they were also rowdy. Their behavior, hot rodding and goofing off in the parking lot and so on, was off-putting to the adult diners. So, it became this difficult kind of needle to thread of like how are we going to track this consumer segment that's foundational to the enterprise but do so under conditions that would keep them in line and not mess up the other potential revenue that we have going. As the kind of nuisance of fast foods became more pitched, municipalities began introducing ordinances to control fast food or even ban it. And that made the suburbs harder to get into or to maintain a foothold in. Corporations then start looking more at the cities that they were avoiding in the first place and the Black communities there that they had excluded. So that happens fairly early and then some other key turning points occur throughout the 1960s. Here we have urban renewal, you have urban rebellions taking place and during the late 1960s when these rebellions and uprisings were taking place, this is the time period when you get the first Black franchisees. Into the 1970s you have oil crises, then you have the burger and chicken wars as the industry called them in the 1980s. And this was referring to corporations battling each other for market share. So, all throughout the history there were different turning points that either accelerated the proliferation of fast food or sort of change the way the industry was looking at Black consumers and so on. Now in some discussions I've heard of this issue off and on over the years from people who have looked at the issue of targeted marketing who have talked about how there was a period of time and you made this clear, when Blacks were excluded from the marketing and they just weren't part of the overall picture of these restaurants. Then there was a movement for Blacks to be included more in the mainstream of American culture so that it was almost seen as an advance when they became included in the marketing. Black individuals were shown in the marketing and part of the iconic part of these restaurants. So that was seen as somewhat of a victory. What do you think of that? It's true and not true. I mean when fast food decided to finally start actually representing Black people in its marketing, I think that is important. I do think that the fact that they were finally making ads and conceiving of campaigns that saw Black people as part of the actual consumer base at which they were, yes, that that is important. But it's also the case that corporations are never doing anything for altruism. It's because they wanted to shore up their bottom line. So, for example, Burrell Advertising is the biggest African American ad shop based in Chicago. They get the McDonald's account and so they're the first ones to have a fast food restaurant account. They begin their campaign in 1971 and at that time, their advertising actually positioned Black families as regular people doing everything everybody else does and going to the restaurant and enjoying time together as a family and so on. And I think those kinds of images were important that they were creating them, but again, at the same time it was only the context in which Burrell got that account. The reasons why McDonald's was reaching out to Black consumers was because, again, in the early 1970s white suburbs were becoming more saturated, and McDonald's needing to expand. Then you have the oil crisis in which people are not driving as much, and Black people because of racism are centered in urban centers and not in the suburbs. So that makes a logical place for them to go and so on. So, it's not without its vexed context that those new advertising images and opportunities were taking place. Okay, thanks. I know that's a complicated topic, so I appreciate you addressing that. You know, something you mentioned just a few moments ago was that when Blacks started to become owners of franchises, can you expand on that a little bit and say what was the significance? Yes. First of all, cities were changing at that time. White residents were moving to the suburbs, multiple public and private policies were keeping the suburbs white and white residents were moving to white suburbs. So, Central City was changing, right? The neighborhoods that had been white before were now changing to become predominantly Black. And so, the fast food outlets that were located in those neighborhoods found their client base changing around them. And many of those operators, and indeed their corporate superiors, were uninterested in and uninformed about a Black consumer base at best and outwardly hostile at worst. You end up with as neighborhood racial transitions are taking place, white operators are now in communities they never meant to serve. Som as urban uprisings rack one city after another, Black franchisees are brought on kind of as a public face in these changing urban areas. The primary goal was to really have Black franchisees manage the racial risks that corporate was finding untenable. They realized that it wouldn't do to have white managers or franchise owners in these neighborhoods. So, they bring in Black franchisees to start making that transition. And then after fast food becomes more interested in trying to deliberately capture more Black spending, Black franchisees become even more important in that regard. For their part, the Black franchisees were seeking out fast food outlets as a financial instrument, right? This was a way to contest and break down unfair and pervasive exclusion from the country's resources. So, it was never about how much fast food we can possibly eat, right? Again, with the demand issue. So, Black franchisees are basically trying to get their part of the pie and then the federal government is heavily involved at this point because they start creating these different minority enterprise initiatives to grow Black small business. And so, it wasn't only the Black franchisees, but also Black franchisors who were starting their own chains. So, for example, former NFL Player Brady Keys started All Pro Chicken, as just one example. So, this idea of expanding fast food franchising to Black entrepreneurs who had been shut out on its face, seems like a laudable initiative. But again, it's like this is not just altruism and also the way that franchises were positioned in this kind of like you can get into business and do so in a way that's low risk because you know you don't have to start from scratch. You're buying into a thriving concern with name recognition and corporate support and all that. And all of that sounds good except you realize that in fact the franchisees are the ones who have to bear all the risk, not corporate. That's what the government was doing in terms of trying to put in all this money into franchising is really. It's like that's the response to the real life and death failures, for example, around policing, which was always at the heart of these uprisings. You have these real life and death concerns and then the government's responding with giving people access to fried chicken and burger outlets, which nobody was asking for really. Not only was the method problematic, but the execution as well. Just because Black people had more access to the franchises doesn't mean that the rest of the racism that was present, suddenly disappeared, right? The theoretical safety of a franchise didn't bear out in practice. Because of course they still couldn't get access to credit from lending institutions to launch their restaurants because they still didn't get support they needed from corporate, which in fact there are still lawsuits to this day by Black franchisees because the communities in which they're operating were still contending with deep inequality. All of that meant that that whole project was not likely to work very well. And you know, it's no surprise that it didn't. You mentioned chicken several times. In fact, there's a chapter in your book entitled Criminal Chickens. Can you tell us more? Yes, Criminal chicken is towards the end of the book. So, the book is organized in three parts. Part one is white utopias, part two is racial turnover, and part three is Black catastrophe. In each of those you see how Blackness is problematic, but in different ways. So Criminal Chicken is really dealing with the fact that by the 1990s, fast food had become pervasive in Black space and was thoroughly racialized as Black. And so, since fast food has saturated these neighborhoods, of course Black residents began to consume it more. With that, a program reigns down from the dominant society over Black people's alleged failure to control themselves and an assumed deviant predilection for unhealthy dietary behaviors, whether fast food, but also the same kind of discourse circulated around soul food. And the tenor of the discourse really raises W.E.B. DuBois's age-old question, which is how does it feel to be a problem? That was really the tenor of the conversation around fast food at that time. The chapters about the ways in which Black people's consumption was frequently characterized as deviant and interrogating the paradoxes around the symbolic meanings of fast food. Because like what we talked about earlier, Black people are basically being criticized for eating something that's supposedly at the heart of Americana. It's a kind of a no-win situation. On the one hand, certainly overseas, fast food continues to enjoy this kind of iconic status of America and American Burger and so on. Even within the country's borders it still retains some of that allure as something emblematic of American culture. But it's also now more fraught because, you know, we're in a moment where local and organic foods and so on are held in high esteem and fast food is the antithesis of that and it's industrial and mass produced and homogenized and has all these nutritional liabilities. So, basically, it's looking at the changing ideas around fast food and race and how that intersected with Black consumption. That's so interesting. I'd like to wrap up with a question, but I'd like to lead into that by reading two quotes from your book that I think are especially interesting. Here's the first. It is painfully logical that Black communities would first be excluded from a neighborhood resource when it was desirable and then become a repository once it was shunned. And then the second quote is this. The story of fast foods relationship to Black folks is a story about America itself. So, here's the question, are there ways that you can think of that fast food and food systems could be reconceptualized to help address issues of justice and equity? I would say that addressing justice inequity in food systems of which fast food is a part, is really about dealing with the other systems that govern our daily lives. Meaning, it's not an issue of trying to fix fast food, right? So, that is a discreet industry it behaves more equitably with communities because what it has done over the history that I trace in the book is it's not so unique in its practices and it also can't have taken the trajectory it did without intersecting with other institutional concerns. So, for example, housing is instructive because you know, of course you can't exploitatively target Black consumers unless residential segregation exists to concentrate them in space. And to do that, obviously you need a lot of different institutional policies and practices at play to produce that. And in a similar way, housing went from exclusion in the form of rank discrimination, resource hoarding, redlining, the denial of mortgages, all of that, to exploitation in the form of subprime lending. And Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor talks about predatory inclusion and I type that in the book because I think it's also a useful way to think about fast food as well. So, if you're thinking about equity in food systems, then you have to think about why is it that resources including food, but also beyond food, in this country are distributed the way that they are. And I think you can't get at the issues of justice that play out for fast food or injustice without addressing the key issues that reverberate through it. And so that's false scarcities that are created by capitalism, the racism that undergirds urban policies around land use, around segregation, deeply ingrained ideas in the American psyche about race and but also about other things. So, for me really, reconceptualizing fast food is really reconceptualizing how we live in America.   Bio   Naa Oyo A. Kwate is Associate Professor, jointly appointed in the Department of Africana Studies and the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers. A psychologist by training, she has wide ranging interests in racial inequality and African American health. Her research has centered primarily on the ways in which urban built environments reflect racial inequalities in the United States, and how racism directly and indirectly affects African American health. Kwate's research has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and by fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Prior to her first major book, White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation, she published the short work Burgers in Blackface: Anti-Black Restaurants Then and Now, which examines restaurants that deploy unapologetically racist logos, themes, and architecture; and edited The Street: A Photographic Field Guide to American Inequality, a visual taxonomy of inequality using Camden, NJ as a case study. Kwate has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Newberry Library, and has received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, the European Institutes for Advanced Studies, and elsewhere. She is currently writing a book investigating the impact of corner liquor stores in Black communities from 1950 to date.  

The episode "A Slow, Mississippi Burning" provides a comprehensive historical perspective on the state of Mississippi, delving into the deep-seated social, political, and racial challenges it has faced. The discussion sheds light on the enduring impact of events such as "The Blood Bowl" in Natchez, Mississippi, "Bloody Lowndes," and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, highlighting the negative connotations associated with the state's history. The episode also focuses on the racialized encounters and pushback against black activists and freedom fighters, featuring insights into the work of Malcolm X, Ella Baker, and the NAACP in the Mississippi Delta, as well as the role of the Freedom Fighters in Jackson, MS. Additionally, the episode explores the rich history of electing black individuals, including women, to public office in Mississippi, with a specific focus on Alderwoman Nicole Robinson and her contributions. The discussion aims to provide valuable insights into the state's history and the ongoing efforts to address its negative connotations, offering a powerful exploration of Mississippi's complex and tumultuous past. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theafrocentricpodcast/message

Listen to the Tues. March 19, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. This episode features our PANW report with dispatches on the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) conducting drills in anticipation of a ground invasion by the United States and Britain; resistance forces are continuing their attacks on the IDF inside the Gaza Strip; the South African government in its legal actions against the IOF at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is demanding action against the genocide in Gaza; and the Republic of South Sudan has closed schools due to extreme heat in the country. In the second and third hours we continue our focus on International Women's History Month looking back at the life, times and contributions of human and civil rights activist Ella Baker. 

Listen to the Sun. March 17, 2024 special edition of the Pan-African Journal: Worldwide Radio Broadcast hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. The program features our ongoing focus on International Women's History Month with segments on veteran civil rights organizers Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Links: Go to episode page Subscribe to Premium Join the Sigma mailing list Sigma's Recommended Resources About This Episode: There is a lot of interesting research going on related to plant-derived fatty acids, owing to their potential to help improve health and provide sustainable alternatives to other sources of healthy-promoting fatty acids. In addition to work looking at the long-investigated alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), some research is now starting to look at more novel fatty acids like stearidonic acid (SDA), and pinolenic acid (PLA), each presenting unique structures and potential benefits within various plant sources. One intriguing focal point is Ahiflower oil, a distinctive source that harbors both ALA and SDA. In this episode, Dr. Ella Baker of the University of Southampton discusses some of the science behind plant-derived fatty acids, offering a deeper understanding of their distinctive qualities, conversion pathways, and the captivating interplay between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Dr. Baker's research to date focuses on the metabolism, functionality, and underlying mechanisms of action of plant-derived fatty acids. Her interests include novel plant-derived fatty acids and exploring the effects on membrane structure and function.

To succeed, any social movement needs people power. And, as the great Ella Baker preached, that takes a lot of slow, respectful work to forge relationships — what she called “spadework.” Base-building is the first of the “seven strategies to change the world” that we elaborate on in our book Practical Radicals. And base-building is so important that all of the other six strategies depend on it. So we've decided to devote two episodes to the topic: one on unions and one on community organizing.  Today's episode focuses on base-building in the labor movement, especially the thrilling upsurge in Minnesota, where workers next week (March 2-9, 2024) are preparing to launch a massive, unprecedented general strike. Our guest is Greg Nammacher, president of SEIU Local 26, which represents janitorial, security, airport, and retail workers, and is a key player in this upcoming week of action. When he came to the local sixteen years ago, it was led by Javier Morillo, who wanted to usher in a new era of union democracy and militancy. And it worked! Local 26's membership has doubled, and by embracing base-building and a “bargaining for the common good” framework, and not being afraid to strike, they've won astonishing victories that point the way for union success around the country. Nammacher's interview is full of gems organizers need to hear: how to foster unity when members speak many languages; how to build “alignments,” not just coalitions or alliances; how to make organizing fun; and how to use social media smartly to build worker networks.  Greg says American labor is in “an incredible moment, and we won't get a lot of these. And so how do we make the most of it so that our members can have better lives and we can have a long-term voice of power in this country?” Minnesota Week of Action Fund: https://workingpartnerships.betterworld.org/campaigns/weekofactionfund Schedule of Events for Week of Action in Minnesota (March 2-9) Episode 3 transcript Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker

On today's show, we're joined by the author of a new uplifting collection of speeches by African American women called Blackbirds Singing: Inspiring Black Women's Speeches from the Civil War to the Twenty-first Century. Our guest and the book's curator is civil and human rights activist, scholar, and author Janet Dewart Bell. Gathering an array of recognized names as well as new discoveries, our guest discusses the speeches and legacies of two centuries of stirring public addresses by Black women, from Harriet Tubman and Ella Baker to Barbara Lee and Barbara Jordan. These magnificent speakers explore ethics, morality, courage, authenticity, and leadership, highlighting Black women speaking truth to power in service of freedom and justice. Check out Janet Dewart Bell's website: https://janetdewartbell.com/ — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Centuries of Inspiring Black Women's Speeches w/ Janet Dewart Bell appeared first on KPFA.

"Give light and people will find the way." Ella Baker. Be a LIGHT everywhere you go today. Be fully charged and ready to shine with love, laughter, peace, joy, and life in every moment and day. When you are a LIGHT you are being your best self. "Because Monday is Motivating."

In this episode we welcome Thandisizwe Chimurenga and Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur to have a conversation that revolves around Sanyika Shakur's final book, Stand-Up, Struggle Forward: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings on Nation, Class and Patriarchy. Thandisizwe Chimurenga is an award-winning Los Angeles-based journalist. Having worked in print and radio/broadcast journalism, she is the author of No Doubt: The Murder(s) of Oscar Grant; Reparations … Not Yet: A Case for Reparations and Why We Must Wait; the soon-to-be-published Some Of Us Are Brave: Interviews and Conversations with Sistas on Life, Art and Struggle, published by Daraja Press, and Nobody Knows My Name: Coming of Age in and Resilience After the Black Power Movement co-written with Deborah Jones, to be published by Diasporic Africa Press. Her commitment to infusing radical Black feminist/womanist politics within Revolutionary New Afrikan Nationalism, which she believes is key to destroying capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacist imperialism, has been informed by Aminata Umoja, Assata Shakur, Pearl Cleage, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Queen Mother Moore, Gloria Richardson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Claudia Jones, Ida B Wells and the “Amazons” of Dahomey. Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur is a father, neighborhood organizer, author of multiple books, educator and a member of Community Movement Builders. He organizes in Detroit, Michigan. Yusef wrote the foreword to Sanyika's Stand Up, Struggle Forward which we're discussing today and Sanyika Shakur wrote the foreword to Yusef Shakur's book Redemptive Soul.  In this discussion Thandisizwe and Yusef talk about their own personal and political relationships with Sanyika Shakur and to his writings. We talk a little bit about New Afrikan political thought as it emanated from the New Afrikan Prisoners Organization particularly as was elaborated by Owusu Yaki Yakubu formerly known under the names James “Yaki” Sayles and Atiba Shanna. We discuss the importance of terminology within the New Afrikan Independence Movement and the contributions of Yaki and Sanyika to this body of political thought.  Thandisizwe Chimurenga and Yusef “Bunchy” Shakur share reflections on Sanyika's writings on patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia and on revolutionary transformation. They discuss the difficulties of re-entry for politicized and political prisoners in an environment without a strong political home to return to, as well as the use of solitary confinement and control units as weapons against politicized figures. Since the publication of our last episode Dr. Mutulu Shakur has transitioned beyond this realm and we want to send our condolences to all of his loved ones and co-strugglers, we also want to take this moment to recognize his indelible contributions to the New Afrikan Independence Movement and the cause of Black Liberation. In the show notes we will link to the book we discuss which can be found through Kersplebedeb or leftwingbooks.net along with the writings of Yaki. We highly, highly recommend both. We will also include a link to many more related writings available digitally through Freedom Archives.  And of course if you like what we do, bringing you these episodes on a weekly basis, become a patron of the show. You can do so for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism Links: Thandisizwe's website (includes ways to support her work) Yusef "Bunchy" Shakur's website (includes a store with his books) Stand-Up, Struggle Forward: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings on Nation, Class and Patriarchy Meditations on Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings by James "Yaki" Sayles Freedom Archives: New Afrikan Prisoner Organization Archives "Pathology of Patriarchy: A Search for Clues at the Scene of the Crime" by Sanyika Shakur Beneath My Surface - Thandisizwe Chimurenga (includes reflection on Sanyika's passing as discussed in the episode) Day of the Gun (George Jackson Doc) The Political Theory of Dr. Mutulu Shakur with Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Kalonji Changa, & Akinyele Umoja  

Part #2:According to civil rights activist and Shaw University graduate Ella Baker, "One of the things that have to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going." That quote encapsulates our podcast theme, where we decode the language, decisions, and hidden areas of local power that often seem illogical to residents. In part 2, we continue exploring Ella Baker's legacy. We dig more into correlations in today's racial/justice movements vs how Ella Baker handled them. We covered:Ella's belief is that "Strong people do not need strong leaders."Changing the mental model of challenging the system.The idea of servant leadership.About Our GuestsJames White is an adjunct professor and national DEI voice. Marie Stark is the Shaw University archivist, where she cares for, preserves, and provides research assistance on the historical materials of Shaw University for students and researchers.Illogical by TRUTH is hosted by Terrance Ruth and is produced by Earfluence

Pleasure Muse: Rosa Parks    Tantalizing Trivia  Her future husband took her on a first date to a rally for the “Scottsboro Boys”, nine Black men who were wrongly accused of rape. From that rally she became compelled to activism.  She was educated on civil disobedience during her days at the famed Highlander School in Tennessee under the guidance of the legendary Septima Clark. Later she attended a leadership training run by the famed Ella Baker.  She was a staunch supporter of the labor movement and managed the office of E. D. Nixon the director of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and President of the NAACP. Rosa Parks became the secretary of the NAACP in Alabama in 1948.  She functioned as an investigator for the NAACP and helped for the Committee for Equal Justice. She was also the youth advisor.  She learned “daily stretching” from her mother as a child and would later in her 50's develop a daily  yoga practice that she shared with her nieces and nephews.   In the mid 90's she was attacked by an assailant in her home. When the media began reporting this as a failing of the Black community, she pushed back hard by offering that the attack was endemic of the systematic problems she spent her life working on and not that of Black people.  She lived to be 92 years old. Flags across the country flew at half-staff on the day of Park's funeral.    Mirror Work: Find a quiet place to sit. Get comfortable. Let the chair do the work of holding you. Plan to be here for 10 minutes. In that time observe your breath without judgment. Is it shallow? Is it deep? What areas of your body does it flow too? Where could you use more breath? Breathe deeply into those spaces. Luxuriate in the fact that you do not  have to stand, do not have to move. You have been given this moment to sit still and just be. Thank God for that.  Affirmation: I can sit and rest. No need to rush.  I am where God wants to be. I am open to where God wants to take me.  I give grace freely. I receive grace daily.  Give Grace:  A Playlist  In Her Own Words:  “You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.”  “Each person must live their life as a model for others.”  “I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free…so other people would also be free.”  “I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.” Didn't catch the live recording of today's episode? We don't want you to miss out on getting the full experience. Check out the opening and closing songs below. Opening ⁠Song⁠ Closing ⁠Song

Analilia Mejia is currently the co-ED of The Center for Popular Democracy...and prior to that she was Bernie Sanders 2020 Presidential Campaign Political Director with stints in the Biden Administration, with the Working Families Party, & deep roots in union organizing. In this conversation, she talks being raised in working class Elizabeth, NJ as a daughter of immigrants, the life-changing role that a union job meant for her family, and the through line of empowering people that has run through her entire career in and around politics.IN THIS EPISODEAnalilia talks growing up in a working poor household in Elizabeth, NJ as the daughter of immigrants...Analilia's "political awakening" in 1988...Analilia cuts her teeth in politics as a union organizer in Chicago...Analilia explains the role of the Working Families Party, whom she led in New Jersey...Analilia on her path to becoming Bernie Sanders '20 Political Director & how she tackled the job...Analilia on why she continues to identify as a "Bernie Bro"...The role Analilia played in bringing Bernie voters into the Biden coalition...How Analilia joined the Biden Administration and why she left it to work again on the outside...Analilia on her role as Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy & the role CPD is playing...Analilia weighs in on how progressive orgs should be cognizant of communicating smartly to voters...Analilia's career advice to young operatives...AND AOC, Saul Alinsky, analogies, Ana Maria Archila, Sarah Badawi, Ella Baker, Build Back Better, George HW Bush, Wendy Chun-Hoon, Detroit Action, Michael Dukakis, finding a full humanity, George Floyd, fireworks, food insecurity, Jeff Flake, the free clinic, gummy bears, Fannie Lou Hamer, The Highlander School, Pramila Jayapal, jiu-jitsu, Arianna Jones, John Kerry, LUCHA Arizona, The Montgomery Bus Boycotts, Vivek Murphy, the New Georgia Project, people chess, radical transparency, Chuck Rocha, Jane Sanders, Faiz Shakir, Singer sewing machines, strep throat, Donald Trump, Nina Turner, the US Constitution, Jeff Weaver...& more!

Hello Great Minds!As we continue on with our soft start to Season 4, the ladies of DGMH join me for Women's History Month Special, where we each discuss a woman that we think deserves more attention. Next week, I will cover the Great Mind that was  Jeanette Rankin! Key Topics: Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells, Margaret MeadFor more DGMH just head on over to Patreon Land to get access to soooooooo much more Great content here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34398347&fan_landing=trueBe sure to follow me on Facebook at "Drinks with Great Minds in History" & Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter @dgmhhistoryCheers!Music:Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3845-hall-of-the-mountain-kingLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Artwork by @Tali Rose... Check it out!Support the show

In the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, American men famously flooded recruiting offices across the nation to join the war effort. These stories are well documented and attested by eye witnesses, but a part of this story left out or overlooked is that black Americans joined with an equal level of fervor. Over one million black men and women served in the war, playing crucial roles in every theatre of World War 2. They worked in segregated units and performed vital support jobs.This mobilization did take time. This was during the Jim Crow era, and some black Americans asked if they should risk their lives to live as what one called “Half-American.” But as the war effort grew, black Americans increasingly enlisted as part of what newspapers called the Double V Campaign, a slogan to promote the fight for democracy abroad but also in the home front in the United States and the idea that black Americans wholeheartedly contributing to the war effort would lead to legal and social equality.Today's guest is Matthew Delmont, author of “Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad – the first-ever comprehensive history of World War II to focus on black Americans.We look at stories figures such as Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated violence against black troops and veterans; Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., leader of the Tuskegee Airmen, who was at the forefront of the years-long fight to open the Air Force to black pilots; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for black soldiers, veterans, and their families; James Thompson, the 26-year-old whose letter to a newspaper set in motion the Double Victory campaign; and poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the black press. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing.Some of their greatest struggles came when they returned home. They were denied housing and education. On the streets of Southern cities, black soldiers were attacked just for wearing their uniforms in public, beaten for drinking from “Whites Only” water fountains, or chased away from the voting booth by mobs. Yet without black Americans' crucial contributions to the war effort, the United States could not have been victorious.

Senator Turner highlights civil-rights trailblazer Ella Baker (1903-1986). SNT plants revolutionary seeds in us today as Ella Baker did to millions of others decades ago. One main thought? The time for radical change has always been now. #HelloSomebody LINKS: Ella Baker https://ellabakercenter.org/who-was-ella-baker/   Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker by Joanne Grant https://icarusfilms.com/if-ell1   Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Dr. Barbara Ransby https://barbararansby.com/ella-baker/   On MLK Day, Honor the Mother  of the Civil Rights Movement by Julie Sceflo https://time.com/4633460/mlk-day-ella-baker/ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10210195622059859&id=1769929223291470&locale2=ne_NP&_rdr   Still I Rise by Dr. Maya Angelou https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise   Diane Nash https://www.biography.com/activist/diane-nash   Claudette Colvin https://www.npr.org/2009/03/15/101719889/before-rosa-parks-there-was-claudette-colvin   Films about Rosa Parks https://1883magazine.com/5-history-films-you-should-see-that-told-rosa-parks-story/     Tickets are now on sale for the FIRST ever Black Effect Podcast Festival happening on August 28th in Brooklyn, NY! Come check us out with The 85 South Show, All the Smoke, and more of your favorite Black Effect Podcast hosts. Get your tickets today at BlackEffect.comPodcastFestival    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.