Perspectives with Condace Pressley

Following a year-plus of being stuck inside because of the pandemic, live theater is slowly returning. The Alliance Theatre took the year to reimagine and build a new set for the holiday classic A Christmas Carol on the Coca Cola stage now through December 24. Additionally, a filmed version of the production is available to stream beginning December 17. Another holiday tradition has returned to th...

Our friends in education tell me the pandemic has set learning - especially in our public schools back four years. That's not the half of it. New research from the Atlanta-based organization Learn 4 Life found the number of students applying for financial aid to go to college has fallen. The reason for fewer applications, the lack of personal interaction with a trusted adult to help a student comp...

On this episode we conclude our conversation with educator and social media influencer Dr. Zackory Kirk with his thoughts on the debate over Critical Race Theory and the 1619 project. Next a conversation with Morehouse College senior Elisha Talley. This 25-year-old Chemistry major from Camden, New Jersey is more than a non-traditional student who benefited greatly from his UNCF scholarship. The Ma...

Topical conversation with educator and influencer Dr. Zackory Kirk about current events including the Atlanta Mayoral election, the race for Georgia Governor, the 2022 midterm elections, the debate over Critical Race Theory and cancel culture. Kirk is a new content creator for Linked In's education hub.

Mission Role Call is a nonpartisan movement working to provide America's veterans a powerful and unified voice in Washington. The organization's top priorities are ending veteran suicide, providing easier access to health care and serving as an advocate for unserved veterans. The group is led by Atlanta resident Patrick Griffith. Next, a conversation with the Executive Director of Ahimsa House, My...

November 30 is Giving Tuesday. It is Georgia's greatest day of generosity. After Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Shop Local Saturday and Cyber Monday, the community asks you go support the nonprofit organization that means something to you. For 130 years, Families First has been a change agent for families. This nonprofit seeks to accelerate families toward a permanent path of stability and success. O...

Imagine making the decision to go into business for yourself. Imagine beginning the journey in early 2020. Charise M. Williams has spent much of her career working in the nonprofit sector. In early 2020 she decided to embrace entrepreneurship as a professional leadership coach. What Williams did not anticipate was the start of a global pandemic. Nonetheless she persisted and also wrote a book, The...

In October, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called a special session of the Georgia Legislature for the purposes of redistricting. This act determines who represents you in the legislature and in Congress. What influence do you have, if any in the process? We put this question to the Political Director of the Georgia ACLU, Christopher Bruce. Then we turn to a community issue. November is National Adop...

She's Atlanta born and bred. She comes from a family of entrepreneurs and thrives as a successful business owner. Dr. Felicia Philips is founder of MogulCon, a 2 day workshop for Black female entrepreneurs. She teaches would-be successful business owners how to build a sustainable strategy to accelerate their businesses. Additionally she's a wife and mother and shares with us how she manages the l...

Moving in The Spirit is an award-winning creative youth development organization that has worked to transform the lives of young people in Atlanta for 35 years through the art of dance. Last month Moving in the Spirit opened a new facility near the Candler/Edgewood MARTA station making the organization’s programs available to many. My guest is one of the organization’s three founders and its CEO,...

Black professionals hold only 3.2 percent of all executive or senior leadership roles in corporate America. When you drill down to the fortune 500 companies, it’s less than one percent. Why is that? A study from the consulting group McKinsey says Black employees are 23-percent less likely to say they receive a lot or quite a bit of support to advance in the workplace. Joining me to discuss is Denn...

After a harrowing interaction with police a a local D.C. park, Malcolm, 16, is angry and despondent and feels like nothing good ever happens for teens like him. The growing violence in his neighborhood leads his mother to send him to their family farm in Mississippi. What happens next is a fantastical journey through time to Reconstruction America. Black Was the Ink is the debut novel by Michelle...

In The Black President, the first interpretative, grand-narrative history of Barack Obama's presidency in its entirety, Claude A. Clegg III situates the former president in his dynamic, inspirational, yet contentious political context. He captures the America that made Obama's White House years possible, while insightfully rendering the America that resolutely resisted the idea of a Black chief ex...

When a loved one is diagnosed with cancer – it’s scary, you feel overwhelmed, isolated and at times just alone in your feelings. Author Mike Murphy shares his spiritual love story of meeting, marrying, and losing the love of his life, Margot, to cancer. His book, LIVING IN COLOR: A Story of Love in Sickness and in Health, Murphy shares a story of a loving, bonded, couple who teamed up as a force t...

Dr. Angella Banks aka Dr. A is leading a celebration of the late comedian Tommy Ford with a gala October 10 at the Buckhead Art Company. The Tommy Ford Legacy-a-Thon supports the Xcellence Leadership. This organization focuses on strategic areas of community leadership to develop and train future leaders.

Paula Chase has been wielding inclusion like a light saber against inequality in literature for more than 13 years. She has often been referred to as a Literary Warrior saving readers through her books that are making the transition from picture book to tween and middle grade literature. With nine children’s book to her credit, Chase is a long-time advocate for both readers’ choice and diversifyin...

According to a nationwide CDC survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, experiences of distress such as depressive and anxiety symptoms were 3-4 times greater than pre-pandemic periods. Additionally, more than 10 percent of respondents said they had seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days compared to just over 4% in 2018. A a CDC study published in June, suspected suicide attempt eme...

We saw them together – co-authors the late civil rights icon John Lewis and his congressional aide Andrew Ayden. Andrew is now an artist in residence at the creative media industries institute at Georgia State University. He continues the fight in his mentor’s name for voting rights and the other issues Lewis was passionate about. Before his death last year, Andrew and Congressman Lewis wrote a ne...

Music brings people together. Individually a song can evoke a memory, a moment a feeling. It's one of the reasons why we gather at concerts to relive a moment of youth or to remember how music makes us feel. On this show, we talk with William King, one of the original members of the Commodores. You know - that group from Tuskegee led by Lionel Richie? Well King sits with me to talk about the old s...

The journey from a dark and traumatic girlhood beneath the shadows of the Hollywood sign to that of an enlightened spiritual leader is shared in an emotional, honest and compelling memoir by Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati in Hollywood to the Himalayas: A Journey of Healing and Transformation.

The journey from a dark and traumatic girlhood beneath the shadows of the Hollywood sign to that of an enlightened spiritual leader is shared in an emotional, honest and compelling memoir by Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati in Hollywood to the Himalayas: A Journey of Healing and Transformation.

Brenda Myers-Powell’s Leaving Breezy Street is a stunning debut; a heartfelt memoir about turning her life around, from a street hustling prostitute and self-described “messed up crackhead” to an advocate for victims of sex trafficking with her foundation Dreamcatcher, subject of a Sundance Award-winning documentary of the same name, and through the United States Advisory Council on Human Traffick...

His childhood was traumatic. Abducted by his father and told that his mother was dead, Ed Hajim could have blamed society for his life challenges. Instead he decided life's adversity would make him stronger. He won a scholarship to go to college and turned a business degree into millions. Millions of dollars Ed Hajim has chosen to give away to educate other disadvantaged young people. His wife of...

Fibroids are benign tumors in a woman's uterus. They can cause unbearable pain and lengthy menstrual cycles. Many doctors recommend surgery, either a myomectomy or a total abdominal hysterectomy to correct the problem. Dr. John Lipman, an interventional radiologist and founder of the Atlanta Fibroid Center argues surgery is not necessary. He treats women via a non-surgical procedure called uterine...

During the summer of 2020, Cyntellia Abrams children began to ask questions about the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed. She decided to take her kids to a protest. Then they wrote a book for children to help kids understand racial and social justice. The book is Small and Mighty: The Next Generation of Leaders.