Intersectionality in the American South

In this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, host Dr. Katie Acosta talks with award-winning filmmaker Michèle Stephenson at Georgia State’s Auburn Avenue Research Center. Michèle Stephenson shares her documentary film True North, which spotlights the 1968–69 Black Liberation Movement in Canada and the student occupation which occurred in what is now Concordia University. True North...

In this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, host Dr. Katie Acosta talks with Jamil Jude, artistic director of Atlanta’s True Colors Theatre Company, about how a football injury in college unexpectedly led to his lifelong passion for theater. Jude reflects on the power of Black theater spaces that cater to a predominantly Black audience and the possibilities for socially relevant th...

In this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, host Dr. Katie Acosta chats with Keith Arthur Bolden, an Actor and Associate Professor at Spelman College, about how representation and community shaped his path into theater and film. Hear his thoughts on becoming an actor, balancing family and finding his way. Watch the video version is episode on Youtube.  Follow us on instagram @inter...

In this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, host Dr. Katie Acosta speaks with Anton Flores-Maisonet, founder of Casa Alterna in Decatur, Georgia, about the organization hospitality and support of asylum seekers and other migrants. Flores-Maisonet shares Casa Alena’s evolution over nearly 20 years—from relationships formed through an immigrant church and cooperative housing, to acco...

Follow us on instagram @intersectsouth or visit our website at  https://sites.gsu.edu/intersectsouth/

In this episode, Dr. Kendra Jason, an Associate Professor of Sociology at UNC Charlotte and Founder of Work for Change, shares her approach to creating inclusive workspaces in higher education and other professional environments. Dr. Jason shares her personal background and research focus on low-wage workers and their opportunities for social mobility. She recounts her University's diversity...

In this episode of 'Intersectionality in the American South,' host Dr. Katie Acosta dives into the ways tech is changing how educators and administrators approach their work higher education . Recorded during a symposium in Mainz, Germany, this episode features interviews with Dr. Kameelah Martin and Dr. Karen Jackson Weaver. Dr. Martin talks about her new research project looking at the...

In this episode, We speak with Sig Giordano who offers a first hand account of their time in the West Bank picking olives alongside Palestinians during the annual olive harvest.  Giordano candidly takes the listener through their learning journey as the granddaughter of Nazi holocaust survivors and advocate for Palestinian liberation. This episode offers a nuanced analysis of what Palestinian resi...

In this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, host Dr. Katie Acosta highlights reflections on the Gullah Geechee Immersive Field School taken by students from Georgia State University and the College of Charleston. Students share their thoughts and feelings about visiting historic sites like McLeod Plantation and Sullivan's Island, meeting Gullah Geechee elders, and learning abo...

On this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, guest Dr. Jessica Berry shares a bit on the significance of the Gullah Geechee language for her personally and professionally. She shares experiences about her upbringing, the unspoken rule of code-switching inside and outside the Gullah community, and the challenges she faced in a predominantly white high school.  Dr. Jessica Berry goes...

In July 2024, the Intersectionality in the American South Collective had the privilege of visiting the McLeod Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina. In this episode, Dr. Katie Acosta speaks with one of the site's preservationists, Reverend Toby Smith, about McLeod's history, the opening of this historic site to the general public, and the intentional efforts to make McLeod a space whe...

Did you know that there are 6 Detention facilities in the state of Georgia used to house undocumented migrants and asylees?  On this episode of Intersectionality in the American South,  we hear from Mr. Amilcar Valencia Executive Director of El Refugio a non profit organization that advocates on the behalf of the detained and their families.  Interested in learning more about this amazing organiza...

After a life threatening crash left a family member disabled, Dr. Raeda Anderson—Research Scientist and the Lead Statistician for the Crawford Research Institute at the Shepherd Center—devoted her life work to seeking change for the disabled community. Too often, conversations about the disabled community are on “fixing” the disabled, which in turn, shifts focus and policy away from this communiti...

The systems we have built don’t always work for the people they were built for.  The problem is that we too often have systems being built by people, not for people. In this episode, Stephanie Diaz and Dana Lloyd speak on the failure of society to build a system that works well for people with disabilities and their work in the Georgia Advocacy Office (GAO) to address this trend.  From individual...

Emile YX? is a Hip Hop activist who reclaims the power of Hip Hop to help the next generation rethink their identity, purpose, and place in their respective communities. A pioneer of beat breaking in his South African cultural context, an educator through his Heal the Hood project, and a survivor of apartheid, Emile YX? channels his experiences to rewrite narratives for the marginalized and recent...

Emile YX? is a Hip Hop activist who reclaims the power of Hip Hop to help the next generation rethink their identity, purpose, and place in their respective communities. A pioneer of beat breaking in his South African cultural context, an educator through his Heal the Hood project, and a survivor of apartheid, Emile YX? channels his experiences to rewrite narratives for the marginalized and recent...

Akua Naru's love for the African diaspora drives her to disrupt and intervene for good through the channel of her Hip Hop music and archival work of The Keeper’s Project. More specifically, the pantheon of black women writers like Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Zora Neal Hurston have provided Naru with a critical black feminist lens and language by which to read the world and retake spaces that p...

The Gullah-Geechee people are the descendants of enslaved West and Central Africans brought in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century to the United States to work on the rice plantations of the Low Country regions on the Southern Atlantic coastline. The term “Gullah” comes from the Central African connection to Angola and comes to represent people of all African descent particularly from South Car...

On this episode of Intersectionality in the American South, Dr. Katie Acosta interviews Dr. Ashlyn Strozier about the challenges faced by Black folks who are trying to conceive,  birthing, or experiencing unwanted pregnancy. Listen as we unpack the health risks this population faces and that structural barriers that impede upon our reproductive rights.    Follow us on instagram @intersectsouth or...

Imagine being incarcerated during the height of the pandemic and having limited access to information about the virus. Imagine being unable to socially isolated or visit with your loved ones.  On this episode,  Dr. Katie Acosta interviews civil rights attorney Whitney Knox Lee about her advocacy work with people who are incarcerated in the state of Georgia.   Listen to Whitney Knox Lee's new...

Poor choices led Patrick Rodriguez—Executive Director of a prison education program at Georgia State University—to extensive time in prison. However, his time in prison demythologized conceptions of the incarcerated as hopelessly depraved individuals as he found a community of “mentors” who wanted better for him and even advocated for him, enabling him to understand his choices and see a potential...

Anthony Downer is an Equity Coordinator for the City Schools of Decatur. In his work, Downer advocates for a curriculum beyond the standards that encourages antiracist, culturally responsive, courageous teaching in the school system that can uplift black students. Recognizing students lack of contact with multicultural narratives and bureaucratic pushback against Critical Race Theory reinforces in...

Beacon Hill Black Alliance is an organization of committed Decatur residents challenging the racist structures in Decatur, Ga. As Black history is American history, the white-washed monuments and symbols in Decatur say otherwise as Black and indigenous peoples historical presence are rendered absent while their contemporary presence is continually threatened by Decatur as it stands. However, throu...

Charity Woods Barnes—founder of the Reproductive Justice Resilience Project—re-centers women of color as fundamental in building a movement for reproductive justice that champions abortion rights yet goes beyond the abortion legality framework upended by Dobbs v. Jackson. Consequently, reproductive justice and resiliency are shown to go hand in hand among Black women, leading Barnes to call for ba...

When Chickenheads Come Home To Roost was published in 1999, Joan Morgan used the vehicle of Hip Hop to birth a vision for Black feminism that would render her a “pioneer.” After 23 years, Morgan celebrates Hip-Hop’s formative role yet pushes beyond its bounds for a larger vision of Black feminist thought while continuing the work of conferring liberatory frameworks for black and brown women. In th...