Naptown People’s Radio

This week brings a special episode focusing on the midterm elections and the so-called Blue Wave that swept the country. Co-hosts Dani Abdullah and Derek Ford cover the significance of the elections, discuss how socialists can build on the wave’s momentum, and examine the real reasons that account for the wave largely bypassing Indiana. The Naptown Breakdown focuses on a new study showing the absu...

Today, the show's Co-Producer Lucas Lee and Indy Liberation Center Organizer Noah Leininger discuss the historic street car strike of Halloween 1913 that occurred right here in Indianapolis. Before the main segment, Derek Ford asks his Co-Host Dani Abdullah about the Nov. 1 Peace March for Justice for Nolan Wells that Dani organized along with Drea Wells, Nolan’s cousin and recipient of our last C...

Joseph Souza, one of the five people arrested for speaking out at a Ball State University Board of Trustees meeting last year, joins the show this week. The “Ball State 5” were arrested, charged with, and jailed for with disorderly conduct at the Board’s first public meeting after Gov. Mike Braun appointed Mike Gallagher to the Board. In addition to protesting the state takeover of public educatio...

On Monday the City-County Council passed a $1.9 Billion budget, 25 percent of which is going to the deadliest gang in Indy despite sustained protests against police killings, brutality, and surveillance from cross-sections of the community. The cops’ budget is an 11% increase from this year’s. The frequently-touted myth of the Community Violence Reduction Team is debunked with data from MaskOfff12...

On October 10, the people of Indy joined millions of people across 60 countries as we took part in the International Day of Action for Palestine. Together with the Middle Eastern Student Association – IUI , Jewish Voice for Peace - Indiana , ANSWER Indiana, and About Face , PSL Indianapolis held a speak out on Georgia St. while Ed Sheeran played the Lucas Oil stadium a few blocks away—without Mack...

On this important episode, library workers break the silence on the sexism, sexual harassment and assault, and retaliation that permeate the workplace culture in our "public" library system. Guest-host Stephen Lane, formerly a library worker and union member, interviews an anonymous IndyPL library worker who has since quit about her and her colleagues' direct experiences with former Pike Branch Ma...

In our 67th episode since starting in June 2025, we're starting to experiment with new formats. In this episode, co-hosts Dani Abdullah and Derek Ford focus solely on local news, covering the most pressing facing our people right now from a radical but objective angle. The word "radical" comes to us from the Latin word "redix," which means "root." In addition to understanding the problems addresse...

With co-host Dani Abdullah on a well-deserved vacation, for this special episode of Naptown People’s Radio, Derek Ford facilitates a dialogue with three comrades behind enemy lines: Shaka A. Shakur, Obadyah Ben-Yisrayl, and Anthony Parish as we build for the Indiana Prison Networking Conference . Naptown Updates: Before hearing from these brothers, Derek provides a few updates on key stories cover...

This week, Leon Benson joined the show to discuss Common Unity 3 and why the yearly event is no longer a tradition but a mission. As a reminder, Leon was framed by the cops and wrongfully imprisoned for 25 years—10 of which he served in solitary confinement— for the murder of Kasey Schoen. Naptown Breakdown: This week, co-hosts Dani Abdullah and Derek Ford address a range of interrelated issues, f...

On the newest episode of Naptown People’s Radio, co-host Dani Abdullah is joined by guest host and PSL comrade Lucas Lee to acknowledge a seemingly simple truth: there is rarely such a thing as a “slow news week” in Indianapolis. The past week was no exception. In the Naptown Breakdown, Dani and Lucas cover: The widespread terror caused by ICE abductions across the city; organizer and educator Jon...

Naptown People's Radio closes out this year's Black August with a special episode on the Black Struggle and why socialists and other progressives must have a clear understanding of the "national question." Is the U.S. really "one nation?" Is there really "one America?" This week, co-hosts Dani Abdullah and Derek Ford address the Marxist understanding of nationhood and why Black people in the U.S....

For our second Black August episode, Aquarius Moon , the 6th most influential burlesque artist worldwide, joined this week’s show to discuss “ Every(body) Wants to be a Show Girl ,” currently on display at the Fonseca-Du Bois Gallery . Leon Benson also gives us a preview of Common Unity 3 , which is fast approaching. Naptown Breakdown: This week’s Naptown Breakdown begins with an update on the str...

Our first Black August episode features an interview with New Afrikan Political Prisoner, organizer, and poet Monsour Owolabi. We learn about how to get involved in his struggle for his, his people’s, and all of our freedom. Our last episode addressed the ongoing brutality at Miami Correctional Facility. While the mainstream media outlets attribute the injuries, deaths, and overall suffering to Go...

Cinder Patel and Sym Cloyd, two library workers and AFSCME 3395 union members, talk about the daily environment of working in our libraries for our communities, how the union fights for the workers and patrons, and more. Naptown Breakdown This week's Naptown Breakdown begins with two lawsuits the ACLU filed against Miami "Correctional" Facility, specifically Indiana's for-profit medical provider,...

Liz Marvin, a local organizer with Indy Resistance Indivisible, joins the show this week to expose how ICE is using the Indy Airport to fly "ghost flights" filled with immigrant workers. No ICE Flights and others are exposing the barbaric reality, forcing us to take a stand: Will we let ICE use our airport as a base of their human trafficking operation? Naptown Breakdown Before the interview, co-h...

Activist Lindsey Holtgrave pulled up to this week's show to tell us about several recently-enacted laws attacking the people of Indiana and our most basic democratic rights—and how we can fight back.

This week we're excited to bring you a special episode that 1) analyzes the 250 years of oppression and resistance as we prepare for the "Independence Day"celebrations and 2) discusses how we are and can strategize based on that legacy of resistance. Today we are also celebrating the the halfway point in our first year at our new home: a visible storefront in downtown Indianapolis. With a nod to D...

Comrade Shaka A. Shakur joins the show for an extended segment of Dispatches from Behind the Wire, providing an in depth description of his case, current situation, and future prospects. Shaka has served 25 years of a 60-year plus sentence for an incident in which no one was deprived of life and the “injured” party said he would not oppose any sentence modification or early release. The Shaka Shak...

This week's episode features New Afrikan Political Prisoner Kwame Beans Shakur discussing not only the need to test theory through practice but providing concrete examples of how to do so successfully. "Revolution is based on land," as Malcolm X said, but that's not enough: cutting the umbilical cord with U.S. imperialism requires the knowledge of cultivating the land and, more generally, utilizin...

Abby Morgan, an organizer with Action Neighbors—a subgroup of the Indy Action Coalition — joins the show, which released its first episode one-year ago today, to discuss their new 4th Amendment Campaign to fight against ICE terror. This week's Naptown Breakdown starts with the rise of China and the U.S. war against Iran and quickly moves to Indiana, as co-hosts Dani Abdullah and Derek Ford discuss...

Rania Hatab of the Lower Hudson Valley DSA and Rockland Coalition to End the New Jim Crow and Jasmine Moody of the Liberation Center tell us first-hand about the battle to dismantle Delaney Hall. Both Hatab and Moody were about an hour away finishing a screening and panel of the new documentary, "Across Enemy Lines: Shaka A. Shakur," when Hatab got word the main organizer inside Delaney Hall was p...

This week, Founding Member of the Hampton Institute and Host of A Different Lens podcast, Devon Bowers, joins the show to discuss the origins, trajectory, and needs of independent left political organizations and media outlets. The Hampton Institute is a proletarian (working-class) think tank founded by Colin Jenkins in 2013 to counter right-wing so-called "think" tanks. Their writers, contributor...

Helping thread together the many struggles facing the people and planet today, FTF KD joins this week's episode. He lets us know about a new podcast, "In the YO!," he's releasing soon (that will also be coming to you from the Indy Liberation Center). China stands tall while Trump walks away with scraps. This week's Naptown Breakdown begins with Trump's recent visit with Chinese President Xi Jinpin...

Our 50th episode features two PSL organizers, one who founded the Indianapolis branch and another who joined two years ago. As we worked out ideas for our 50th episode, we realized we hadn't spoken much about the organization behind the podcast: the Indianapolis branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation . On this week's episode, hear co-host Derek Ford dialogue with Sam James, who co-founde...

This week we hear from Haki Shakur, National Spokesperson for the Provisional Government of the Republic of Afrika, on the state of the struggle for New Afrikan independence. Before we get to the Naptown Breakdown, co-host Dani Abdullah makes plain why we at the Indy Liberation Center always keep the fight for Black Liberation center-stage and work to move it forward. We mean something specific wh...