Almost There with Dwayne Betts

Robert Stewart defended his doctoral dissertation almost 11 years to the day after he walked out of prison. Today, as a sociological criminologist at the University of Maryland, he researches the experiences and beliefs of people who have also been through the criminal legal system. Asking important questions about civic inclusion, Robert has researched the startling impact of criminal records on...

When life-long politics nerd Amanda Litman woke up the day after the 2016 election, and the candidate she had been working for lost, she didn’t wallow. Instead, she launched Run for Something, an organization that helps young people run for office. The organization’s team of experts offers guidance to potential candidates under 40 on everything from selecting a race, to planning a campaign, to wha...

Walking is the single most powerful thing a Black woman can do for her health, according to Morgan Dixon and Vanessa Garrison. Black women and girls experience higher rates of hypertension and diabetes, higher maternal mortality, and overall shorter life expectancy than other Americans. As a practical first step to healing and transforming their own lives, members of their organization, GirlTrek,...

How do we remember the darkest parts of our collective past—from slavery in the U.S. to the Holocaust in Germany—while moving steadily forward? This question has driven poet and journalist Clint Smith to travel the U.S. and cross oceans in search of places, stories, and public memorials that deepen our shared understanding of what human beings have done to each other, and how we can collectively h...

On Almost There, a new podcast from Emerson Collective, poet and lawyer Dwayne Betts talks to creative problem solvers—architects, doctors, writers, voyagers, organizers, artists—whose ideas could remake our world. In each episode, we’ll learn about the unpredictable journeys that have led them to the big questions driving their work: How do we keep our families and communities healthy? How do we...