Intersectionality Matters!

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by Laura Flanders, Kaye Wise Whitehead, and Tim Wise. They discuss the power of the electorate to speak truth to power, and vital work that lies before us now that we've cast our ballots. Music by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate to our show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by two of the founders of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown, as well as journalist Kirsten West Savali. They discuss the importance of early voting, the vital role Black media plays in defending democracy as technofascists rig public discourse, and the parallels between today's political landscape and that of the post-Reconstruction era. Listen...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw continues Intersectionality Matters' 2026 election coverage with anti-racist educator and AAPF Sr. Fellow Tim Wise, and journalist Kirsten West Savali. Together, they go behind the headlines from the last week to connect the dots, and discuss polling data relevant to African American voters. New episodes drop weekly on Fridays through November 3rd. This episode includes clip...

When a Cornell student known as Jane Doe came forward alleging she was assaulted by seven fellow students, the "Cornell Seven", it ignited a national firestorm. It also resurfaced an old pattern of institutional betrayal that universities, police, and the legal system have repeated for decades when women report sexual abuse. In this episode, host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by philosopher Kate Man...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw launches Intersectionality Matters' 2026 election series with philosopher Jason Stanley (How Fascism Works) and journalist Kirsten West Savali. Together they connect three headlines: the raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar's home, the plan to live-stream a public execution, and AOC's remark that "woke 1.0 was crazy", into a unified portrait of a democracy under fascist threat. New episo...

Honouring the life and legacy of Gloria Steinem, host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by scholars Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Salamishah Tillet for an intimate conversation about the ways Steinem touched their lives, and affected history. This episode includes clips from: Yahoo News Time Magazine Music by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Donate to our show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw and author Jamilah Lemieux reflect on how it feels to release their first memoirs. On the heeels of the release of Backtalker: An American Memoir, author Kimberlé Crenshaw embarks on a series of conversations with fellow Backtalkers — those who speak truth to power and habitually challenge injustices that others deem unfixable. This is episode two. For the inaugural episode...

America turns 250—the momentous milestone comes to us cloaked in surreality. Anniversaries usually ask us to remember. This one asks whether we are willing to remember everything. This episode explores why, after two and a half centuries, our national narrative still clings to the anti-Blackness embedded in the nation’s founding, all while insisting that this bleak history no longer deserves our a...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw and celebrated legal professor Cheryl Harris discuss the creative process and anticipated release of Crenshaw's latest book, Backtalker: An American Memoir. Crenshaw’s memoir traces the way her lived experience made her see things others didn’t. It chronicles the earliest moments she starts to talk back, and the journeys that backtalking has taken Crenshaw on throughout her...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by award-winning radio host Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead and playwright and feminist activist V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of The Apology. Together they discuss the 2026 NCAA Women's Final Four game, where coach Geno Auriemma aggressively confronted Coach Don Staley after she led her team to victory against his. They discuss the mysogynoir of this moment, the insuffi...

On Cesar Chavez Day and the close of Women's History Month, host Kimberlé Crenshaw and award-winning radio host Kaye Wise Whitehead unpack a painful reckoning: recent New York Times revelations of sexual abuse by labor icon Cesar Chavez, including allegations from movement co-founder Dolores Huerta, who broke her silence at age 95. Together they explore why survivors delay disclosure, how hero wor...

This episode is an act of recovery, uplifting the artistic careers that McCarthyism upended through an immersive blend of conversation and artivism performances. This is part two. Click here for part one. Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen; and former President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and film...

This episode explores the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson—from organizing alongside Martin Luther King Jr. to building the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and reshaping the American electorate through his historic presidential campaigns. Challenging the media’s narrow framing of Jackson's impact in the wake of his passing, the episode uplifts the ways that his strategy, diplomacy, and inclusive vision lai...

This episode is an act of recovery, uplifting the artistic careers that McCarthyism upended through an immersive blend of conversation and artivism performances. Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen; and former President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and film scholar Jacqueline Stewart. Hear powerful...

Music has long been central to the fight for freedom—the rhythmic heartbeat of the struggle for justice. From Beyoncé to Shaboozey to L’il Nas X and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Black artists have sparked a much-needed conversation about the rich legacy of Black artistic achievement in multiple genres of American music. This episode celebrates the Black roots of country, blues and folk music by bringin...

It's the 11th anniversary of the #SayHerName Campaign. To commemorate, we're uplifting a favourite #SayHerName episode from our archive. Please join us on Dec 8 in NYC for a staged reading of #SayHerName - The Lives That Should have been, featuring a star-studded cast of performers, a talkback with the mothers of the #SayHerName Mothers Network, and a post-show party with performances by special g...

This episode features Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson with professors Carol Anderson and Nancy MacLean, in conversation with our host Kimberlé Crenshaw. This riveting and timely conversation shows how anti-Blackness can be weaponized to harm democracy for all through voter suppression, money in politics, and the erosion of democratic safeguards. Clips in this episode...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by authors Jason Stanley and Randi Weingarten to discuss why authoritarians and fascists target education on the path to destabilizing democracy. They unpack how book bans, attacks on teachers, and efforts to erase history from public institutions threaten the democratic project, and what we can do to fight back. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, produced by Kevin Minof...

As we slide into autocracy, disparities impacting Black Americans are being ignored while Black excellence is actively erased from our workplaces, museums, and history books. These attacks are no longer cloaked with dog whistles. They're happening in plain sight, and endangering our health, eliminating our jobs, and gutting our civil rights infrastructure. Despite the scale of this attack, the res...

In part 2 of this series, host Kimberlé Crenshaw, refutes the myth that book and curricula bans seek to restore “parental choice” over what kids are exposed to, linking attacks on school lessons about race, gender and more to a broader attack against public education and democracy itself. Join as she traces the history of today's prominent, pro-censorship parent groups throughout American history,...

A special collaboration with Today with Dr. Kaye, this episode was taped live at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. Host Kimberlé Crenshaw, with Kaye Wise Whitehead and guests Time Wise, Karen Attiah, Melanie Campbell, Janel George, Ambassador Elizabeth McKune, and Barbara Arnwine, discuss the importance of protecting Black American history through fighting for the Smithsonian, and why the stru...

At the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. They explore how museums shape national identity. They also historicize the current political attacks aiming to erase Black narratives, as institutions like the Smithsonian and Whitney Plantation face censorship and defunding because of executive orders. This episod...

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw takes listeners to Alabama to learn about the contemporary importance of Bloody Sunday and the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Featuring: Cliff Albright, co-founder, Black Voters Matter LaTosha Brown, co-founder, Black Voters Matter Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) 1965 foot soldiers Denise Jaringan-Holt and Alice Moo...

In this episode, host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by some of the country's brightest legal minds to discuss the Trump administration's executive orders, how they'll affect progressive movements, and what communities can do to defend those affected. Watch the extended version of this episode Learn more about Trump's executive orders and their potential harms Featuring: Damon Hewitt David J. Johns R...

In the first episode of this limited series, Critical Race Theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw takes listeners on a journey through the origin story of Critical Race Theory (CRT), from her days as a student demanding desegregation at Harvard, to the moment she learned President Trump banned CRT in his 2020 executive order. This episode delves into the hopes and inspiration that birthed the CRT legal moveme...