Arrested Mobility

From jaywalking laws, to freight trains, to city infrastructure that divides majority minority neighborhoods, Arrested Mobility has touched on the many ways that policies, politics, planning decisions, police practices, and public narratives have limited Black movement. In this episode, we're looking back across the first three seasons of the show, at the stories and voices that have stayed with u...

When we talk about racial discrimination in American cities, we usually focus on housing, schools, or policing. We talk less about streets and sidewalks. But in many communities of color, decades of disinvestment have resulted in a built environment where people are unable to move through public space in a safe and healthy way. Those communities tend to look a lot like Lansdowne, a predominantly B...

For generations, the dominant public response to violence was punishment and enforcement. But another approach has continued to grow alongside that model: Community Violence Intervention. CVI suggests that the people best positioned to interrupt gun violence are often those with lived experience, deep relationships, and hard-earned credibility in the communities most affected. Sometimes, they're p...

When majority minority neighborhoods become sacrifice zones for pollution, it can fall on community members to stand up and defend their health and wellbeing. Case in point: the nonprofit organization, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, was founded in 1988 to organize the people of West Harlem and protest the construction of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant. Today, WE ACT continues to advocat...

Healthcare is a difficult system to navigate in the United States, no matter who you are. But research shows that Black Americans face unique challenges when seeking medical care. On this episode, Charles T. Brown speaks with Rhonda Smith, Executive Director of the California Black Health Network. This is an organization that advocates for Black Californians of all backgrounds to have quality, equ...

One night in 2014, Renard Monczunski was stranded at a transit center in downtown Detroit. It took three hours for a bus to come. He was angry, but the experience got him thinking about the state of public transit in the city that built the American automobile industry. Renard decided to do something about it. Together with Detroit People's Platform, he built a team of transit riders that have lea...

Advancing Beyond in Sports (ABIS) is an advocacy group that addresses sports-specific inequity, particularly for young athletes of color. Their work involves showing students alternate options to consider after their athletic career, and helping athletes secure Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals to build businesses and wealth. Today, Charles T. Brown and his son, Christian Brown, speak with ABI...

The Center for Cultural Power works with BIPOC communities to amplify authentic stories that counter harmful narratives and build public will for policy change. From supporting Walmart workers to advancing reproductive justice, they've seen firsthand how the right story told at the right time can reshape entire movements. In this episode, Charles T. Brown sits down with Aisha Goss, CEO of the Cent...

In 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd, Portland native Randal Wyatt had an idea. As people asked him how they could be better allies to the Black community, he saw an opportunity to address a critical but often overlooked driver of gentrification: home maintenance. Taking Ownership PDX was born, providing free repairs and renovations for Black homeowners, particularly elderly residents...

In 2024, the Detroit People's Food Co-op opened its doors in Detroit's North End neighborhood. This full-service grocery store was birthed by the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network, or DBCFSN. It's an organization that focuses on food justice, land access, and building Black self-determination.  Today, we will hear from Gi'anna Shears and Dr. Shakara Tyler Saba, the co-executive dire...

In 1942, the Taborian Hospital opened in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. At a time when most hospitals segregated Black from White patients or turned Black patients away, the Taborian Hospital provided equal treatment and care for all. There is no question that desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement improved access to healthcare for Black Americans. But today, rural hospitals increasingly face clos...

For nearly her entire life, Amy Stelly has lived in the Treme district of New Orleans. Her house is near the Claiborne Expressway, a piece of Interstate-10 that was built through the neighborhood in 1969. The Claiborne Expressway is one of many American highways to divide and deprive Black communities.  Not only has this infrastructure damaged these neighborhoods economically and culturally, but i...

In 2017, Atlanta's city planning department designated four large green spaces as quote "lungs," that were vital for cooling the city. They announced plans to turn one of these lungs, the South River Forest, into an urban park. But four years later, there was a change in plans. The mayor approved a police and firefighter training facility to be built in that park. It's called "The Atlanta Public S...

When low income neighborhoods receive new parks and green spaces, it can be a huge win for long-term residents. But greening initiatives can invite what we call "green gentrification." If the rent is cheap and the neighborhood is suddenly more attractive, walkable and bikeable, then it's very likely that wealthier people will start moving in. These are often White people entering predominantly com...

Automated Traffic Enforcement, or ATE, refers to a variety of tools that are used to enforce traffic laws through technology. You usually see them as red light cameras, and speed cameras. But there are also license plate readers, bus lane enforcement cameras, and many more examples. ATE is spreading across the country very fast. There are situations where ATE can reduce speeding, and theoretically...

A local bus or train ride usually costs between one and three dollars. But many Americans living in public transportation-dense cities choose to evade paying for transit tickets when possible. They get on the bus through the back door and avoid the driver. And in bigger cities, it's common practice to hop the turnstile on the subway. Fare evasion can cost transit agencies across the country tens,...

The 15-minute city, or neighborhood, was conceived by Carlos Moreno, a professor and influencer in Paris. It's an area where residents can access everything they need in their life - food, work, school, community gathering places - within 15 minutes of their home. The 15-minute city reduces reliance on cars, improves the quality of life for residents, and makes cities more sustainable and environm...

In Central Wisconsin, undocumented immigrants from Latin America make up the majority of the workforce in the dairy industry. Although these undocumented folks are allowed to own and register vehicles, they can't get driver's licenses without legal residency. As a result, police in rural Wisconsin often racially profile drivers of color, knowing that they may not have a license to be on the road. ...

Many Black students live in over-policed, under-funded communities. School should be a safe space for them, a refuge from surveillance and a place to explore. But  almost 70% of public high schools and middle schools have police officers on site, and Black students have contact with police more often than White students. When there's police inside the school, and police outside the school, law enf...

In a majority Black and Latino neighborhood of Hammond, Indiana, children are clambering over and under stopped train cars to get to school. These trains are halted by rail traffic at pedestrian intersections, and there are not a lot of enforceable laws to keep them moving. Blocked crossings can pose an inconvenience, or a deadly obstacle, to Americans of all kinds. But in the United States, we us...

Thank you all for listening to Season 1 of the podcast. We're happy to announce that Arrested Mobility is returning for Season 2 this July. We'll be covering more major themes in equity, but also diving into current events and injustices – topics like railroads disrupting Black communities, the presence of police officers in schools, food insecurity and food deserts, and much more.  This podcast i...

To quote the famous Black author, Audre Lorde, none of us live single-issue, nor single-identity lives. When you consider how people with compounding identities may experience overlapping structures, and systems of oppression - we call that intersectionality. And when it comes to arrested mobility, an intersectional approach can reveal more about the challenges that different Black people face whe...

In 2014, Lance Rodriguez was riding a bike around Queens, New York, when he was stopped by police.  Whether you know it or not, a very different legal precedent has been established for when police stop bike riders, versus when they stop drivers in motor vehicles. Stopping and searching cyclists is just one way that Black and Brown Americans have had their mobility arrested. Today, we're breaking...

An extensive system of levees runs along the Mississippi River, from Missouri through to the Delta region of Louisiana. Some of these floodbanks have been converted into walking and biking trails, which are supposed to be open to the public. But in some rural Louisiana communities, converted levee paths are not always equitably accessible. These communities are more than 50% Black, but researchers...

On May 15th, 2022, the Black community of St. Louis, Missouri gathered downtown to celebrate the Annie Malone May Day Parade. Annie Malone was one of the first Black women to become a millionaire in the United States.  The day after the parade, Public Safety Director Dan Isom held a press conference. He said that groups of young people downtown had caused traffic and safety disruptions with electr...