Stepping Into Truth: Conversations on Social Justice and How We Get Free

When John Pavlovitz's new book Worth Fighting For: Finding Courage & Compassion When Cruelty is Trending, landed on my desk I was intrigued by the title. Given that trolling on socials, nastiness on the news, and day-to-day unkindness to one another seem to be the norm, there isn't any way to argue that cruelty is not the currency of the day. So a book on reconnecting to compassion felt like a...

All too often we think about, or more accurately don't think about, the ripple effects of low-wage work on families beyond the thought that things must be tight. In this conversation, based on their important book, Getting Me Cheap: How Low Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty, Lisa Dodson, Amanda Freeman, and I discuss the implications not just in the present but in the future for those tra...

When I first heard about Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life, Asad L. Asad's brilliant exploration of how undocumented people navigate living in the U.S. I thought that I had a pretty good understanding of the situation. I did not.  The experience of living undocumented in the U.S., particularly in southern border states, is a unique dance of engage...

Kat Calvin & Omkari Williams Kat Calvin and I both wrote books! Kat's is American Identity In Crisis: Notes from  an Accidental Activist. Mine is Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World (Without a Bullhorn).  When we realized that our books were coming out within weeks of each other we thought that we should have a conversation about them and the work we do in the world. Kat...

Often, when we think about racial justice immediately following the Civil War we think about a relatively narrow slice of Black history. Blair LM Kelley's Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class shines a light on stories that we don't hear enough about.  Drawing on stories from her own family and extensive research Blair tells us a compelling tale of Black folk beginning to claim their pl...

David Mura If I am a broken record on any subject it's probably on the impact of story and how the stories we tell to ourselves and others shape our understanding of the world. In his powerful book, author David Mura, writes about some of the stories that underlie the American experience.  With examples from literature and film David explores and important perspective in our fight for racial justi...

Leah Penniman In 2018 Leah Penniman wrote Farming While Black, a beautiful book recounting her experience of building Soul Fire Farm and, also, a guide for other Black and Indigenous people looking to reconnect to the land. Now Leah has compiled a treasure trove of conversations that she's had with other Black people who work in harmony with the Earth. Black Earth Wisdom brings together the voices...

:Debilyn Molineaux Have you ever wished for an unmistakable sign of the direction you should be going in? I know I have. For Debilyn Molineaux, President and CEO of Bridge Alliance that sign set her on a path to work towards healing the divides that are ripping at the fabric of the United States.   In this conversation Debilyn and I talk about where we are as a country, how we get out of the mess...

Shaun Marq Anderson Given how little we are taught about Black history in general it's not surprising that most of us, me included, have relatively little knowledge of the role that Black athletes have played in the social justice movement before the late 20th century. But since the Reconstruction Era Black athletes have been pushing the envelope, trying to move us towards justice and equity. Shau...

Allison Butler We hear a lot about Critical Race Theory, as we should. But what about Critical Media Literacy? Have you ever even heard the term? I hadn't. Then I read The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People. Not to quibble with the authors but really, this isn't only for young people. This is for all of us.  We're taking in so much information from so many media sour...

Ross Morales Rocketto I feel pretty safe in saying that we all have gripes about our government. Where it's not doing enough, where it's overreaching. Most of us just gripe, Ross Morales Rocketto has taken a decidedly different path. Along with his co-founder, Amanda Litman, Ross has made it his mission to get as many young (read under 40) progressives elected to offices at the state and local lev...

EMERALD GARNER Most of us, mercifully, get through life without getting the news that Emerald Garner and her family got on a July day in 2014. Her father, Eric, had been killed by a police officer who used a chokehold on him as Garner spoke those words that we have heard all too often, "I can't breathe". While her older sister, Erica, sprang into action Emerald stayed in the background until the d...

Diane Rosenfeld I read a lot of books, most of the people I interview on this podcast are authors, so I'm pretty used to finding interesting aspects to various subjects. But when I started reading this book I was riveted! I couldn't wait to talk with Diane about what we humans, particularly females, could learn from Bonobo apes.  That apes had figured out how to eliminate male sexual coercion and...

Kelli Stewart Sports are part of the culture of every country. Here, in the U.S., baseball is our "national pastime". Kelli Stewart and her husband, CJ, decided to use the tool of baseball to teach disadvantaged and at risk young Black boys essential life skills. Founders of the LEAD Center in Atlanta, GA Kelli and CJ have grown a program that reaches at risk Black boys in middle school and high s...

Will Jawando Will Jawando sat down to write a book about the Black men who had the most impact in his life. That book, My Seven Black Fathers, has illuminated corners of the Black experience, particularly the Black male experience, that all too often go unseen. In our conversation Will and I talk about the influence of these men, including Barack Obama, on him. But more than simply a personal narr...

Kerri Kelly September 11th changed life for all of us, but for Kerri Kelly the impact was especially personal. In the aftermath of that event Kerri upended her life and went on a search for wellness. What she found was not what she expected and, once again, the trajectory of her life was changed. In her new book, American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, and in this conversat...

Shawn Ginwright What if we've been approaching this whole idea of justice and have left out a critical piece? What if our very approach is actually helping cement the damage that bias and systemic inequity have caused?  We all know that there is much healing that has to happen if we're going to be the equitable society that we envision. The question is how do we get from here to there? What are th...

Tatenda Musapatike If your best friend asks you what you want to do in the world and your response is, "Run shit" then you and Tatenda Musapatike should probably sit down and grab a drink.  The founder of the organization, Voter Formation Project, Tatenda and her team work to leverage the digital age to not only get people registered to vote but also to get them excited to vote. From working for F...

Nisha Anand Around the world the divisions that define our societies are becoming deeper and more hardened. In this inspiring conversation Dream Corps CEO Nisha Anand and I talk about the power of finding common ground.  If we truly want to make the difference that we say we want to make we have to be willing to work with people who may have radically different points of view to ours but who, mira...

Obery Hendricks From the moment of his announcement that he was running for the presidency Donald Trump directed his efforts towards courting white evangelicals with  racist and anti-immigrant sentiments. But he didn't start this trend, he simply hopped on a bandwagon that had been gaining speed for years. Author, scholar, and ordained minister Obery Hendricks and I explore some of the lesser know...

For many Black Americans the land itself is the scene of the crime. That legacy of slavery has dramatically impacted the relationship that many Black Americans have with the land.  Food and land justice activist Leah Penniman is working to change that. A founder of Soul Fire Farm and the author of Farming While Black, Leah has made it her mission in life to reconnect Black and Brown people with th...

Veronica Chambers For a lot of people Black Lives Matter became part of their lives in a concrete way in the wake of the murder of George Floyd but the story of the organization starts years earlier. In her book, with its gorgeous photographs, NYT editor Veronica Chambers takes us on not only the journey of BLM but also looks to the past and the future to see where we came from and where we might...

Varun Nikore 2020 saw the greatest increase in voter turnout by the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in history. That turnout powered the vote in key states like Georgia and helped prevent another four years with the former guy. I wish the fight for our democracy was over but it's clearly not and there are some important lessons to take away from what happened in 2020.  My guest to...

Nicole Hockley In the wake of the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary, where 20 children (6 and 7 years of age) and six educators were killed on December 14, 2012, some of the grieving parents joined together to do what they could to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again and Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) was born. Nicole Hockley's six year old son, Dylan, was among those killed and now she, and...

Shelby Kretz In the midst of this awakening, in the larger community, to the systemic injustices in our society we've heard a lot about "wokeness". What if instead of people having to get woke in adulthood we raised children who were aware of and sensitive to social justice issues from the beginning? Imagine if, instead of coming to this work as adults, we had all come to it as children. What migh...