Perspectives with Condace Pressley

Our program today is about resilience. It’s a word used often in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic of the last 2 and a half years, but this conversation will be about resilience in a different way. My guest is Tiran Jackson. You may have heard his story in the spring of 2018 – seems like a lifetime ago. He and his wife Maleka had traveled to the Bahamas to celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary....

Dr. Yan Katsnelson calls premature hysterectomy in women completely unnecessary. He argues it is time to check your circle and know your status to ignite the conversation amongst women and men about fibroid disease. Every year, millions of women suffer in silence. 80-percent of Black women and 70-percent of white women will be diagnosed with debilitating fibroid disease by the age of 50. Often wom...

How often do you find that your mind wanders to events in the past or worries of the future instead of what matters and what you can control in the here and now? In the book, Get Out of My Head: Creating Modern Clarity with Stoic Wisdom, author M. Andrew McConnell shows you it’s possible to achieve clarity, make good decisions, and rise in your career by illustrating that the human mind is not unl...

Eating disorders do not discriminate. They impact people of every age, race, size, gender identity, sexual orientation and background. Many people who suffer from eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25. The nonprofit EDIN - Education and Insight on Eating DIsorders strives to serve as an Atlanta-based resource for those wanting to learn more about eating disorders, for those seeking he...

Dr. Nadia Lopez, acclaimed middle school founder and principal, award-winning education specialist, leadership coach and best-selling author, has a program, The Lopes Effect, which will expand to schools across the country and disrupt the school to prison pipeline. Dr. Lopez recognizes the tremendous pressures that administrators, students, teachers, and parents are under in the school environment...

Amanda Brown founded her firm, Amanda Brown Olmstead Associates on June 1,1972, making her agency one of the longest serving full-service public relations firms not only in metro Atlanta but also in the Southeast. Before she married, she says people called her Amanda Brown from "out of town." This year she celebrates 50 years in business. Her boutique firm has worked in most industry segments and...

Jessica Nabongo loves to travel, so much so that she has visited the world’s 195 countries and 10 territories. She came away with two key lessons. First, most people are good. Second, we are more similar than we are different.” In her inspiring travelogue, The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World, she describes her journey around the world, highlighting 100 countr...

When I was a child, one of my favorite things about summer was the summer reading club. If I read a certain number of books I’d get tickets to an Atlanta braves game. This was back in the day when it was much easier for the club to give away tickets to kids – long before we became world champions. I say that to say this – if there is something your kids are doing this summer – in addition to sport...

To know where we’re going, we first need to know where we’ve been. In her new book, The Bean Pie: A Remembering of our Family’s Faith, Fortitude, & Forgiveness, entrepreneur Tiffany Green-Abdullah explores this concept to analyze her ancestral past with her own family. The Bean Pie follows four generations of women in Tiffany’s family: Tiffany, her mother, her 2nd great aunt, and her grandmother....

In 1974 John Egerton wrote a book called the Americanization of Dixie. In 2022, Pulitzer Prize-winner Cynthia Tucker and award winning author Fry Gaillard carry that work forward in their book, The Southernization of America: A Story of Democracy in the Balance. In this work they take a deep dive into Nixon's Southern Strategy, the party of Reagan, the backlash against Barack Obama and so much mor...

Mark Adam Wood aka 'The Captain' is one of the founding members of the funk band, Lakeside. The group will be performing along with Cameo and Confunkshun at the Mable House Amphitheatre on May 29. The band is originally from Dayton, Ohio and has been around for more than 40 years. He takes us back to the band's formation, their nine hit albums and the performers' balance between playing the hits a...

During their lifetimes, the late C.T. and Octavia Vivian collected more than 6,000 books on African American literature, history, poetry and more. The C.T. and Octavia Vivian Museum and Archives will honor their life and their legacy. DeAna Jo Vivian, their daughter-in-law heads the archive and recently honored authors including Natasha Trethewey, Taylor Branch, Tayari Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates and...

We first met Carmen Hope Thomas several years ago when we talked about her book, "Why Marry a Man You Don't Need." Fast forward to 2022 when we learn Thomas one night went to sleep with a headache and fatigue, and woke up completely blind the next morning. She found out her blindness was due to a brain tumor, and she was rushed to emergency surgery. After surgery, Carmen lost her hair and found re...

She’s been called one of the most influential literary voices of a generation. Her debut novel, THE HATE U GIVE, started as a senior project in college. It was later acquired in a 13-publisher auction and debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. THE HATE U GIVE was adapted into a critically acclaimed film directed by George Tillman, Jr. The Hate U Give (2017) follows Starr Carter, a te...

Why are some people so good with technology? In the prevailing view, the answer is “natural ability”—and the lion’s share of those gifted just happen to be affluent white and Asian males. Beyond popular opinion, this assumption dominates education and the workplace, which not only puts women and other racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage but also makes it harder to fight against inequities i...

On Easter Sunday we talk with Thomas Fellows. Fellows is an Atlanta native now living in Texas. He has written nine books which seek to interweave the Bible, his faith, history and literature. We talk about 2 of his books, one based on a small character in the classic To Kill a Mockingbird and the other based on the criminal who was crucified with Christ and asked for forgiveness.

Ambassador Andrew Young recently celebrated his 90th birthday with a weeklong celebration across the city. To mark the milestone, Young collaborated with AJC race and culture reporter Ernie Suggs and longtime friend Don Bermudez to write "The Many Lives of Andrew Young" available where you find books today. Suggs talks about the urgency in writing this book now with the recent passing of the Rev....

First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta joins WSB Radio in its centennial celebration. Messages from the church have been on the radio and exclusively on WSB for a century. It is the oldest, and longest running radio ministry in the world. My guest is Pastor Tony Sundermeier. We talk about how the church will observe the milestone as well as the challenges in reaching the lost in the 21st century.

Black men have the lowest life expectancy of any major demographic group in the United States, as CDC figures affirm. Based on Census Bureau projections, the life expectancy for a Black American male born in 2020 is 74 years, nearly five years less than the life expectancy for a white newborn male. In JUST HEALTH: Treating Structural Racism to Heal America author Dayna Bowen Matthew makes a strong...

Georgia Congressman David Scott and Christopher Nunn, Executive Director of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs join Perspectives to discuss the new Georgia Housing Assistance Program. Federal legislation passed allocates $354 million dollars to Georgia homeowners in need. The money may be used to catch up on mortgage or rent payments and may be used to pay some utilities. Applicants must...

Dr. Jaqueline Dow is a research scientist who cares deeply about women's s health. When life circumstances dealt her a surprising blow, Dr. Dow was prepared to pivot with her passion: JDow fitness. Her goal is for women to look good and feel good in their clothes, especially two years at home in active wear. She launched an athleisure line that is featured in Target as part of the company's DE&I i...

Dr. E. Dewey Smith is a minister working to end the human trafficking in our community. He is pastor of the House of Hope in Atlanta and Macon. In 2013, Dr. Smith launched The Tabitha's House, a nonprofit organization that provides housing, counseling and support to young girls rescued from human trafficking. His congregation is one of the few churches in the nation that owns a resource center and...

What began as a single daily email of encouragement to a cancer patient and friend has turned into a movement of moments to encourage many. Susan Lax is a counselor who works with those touched by illness, grief and loving through death. From the one note to a friend there is now Morning Inspiration and a book, A Heart's Landscape: An invitation into the Garden of Moments.

Joining me for this episode are authors Kimberlee Williams and Debby Irving. Kimberlee's new book is "Dear White Woman, Please Come Home." It is a series of 40 letters to a fictional missing white sister. Williams explores with many emotions how white women, often despite their best intentions signal to her and other Black women to proceed with caution when around them. These fictional letters are...

As we round out black history month is DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond. Before becoming the DeKalb CEO, he served in the Georgia General Assembly and was the first African American elected to statewide office without having been appointed to the position first. He’s transformed the state department of family and children services, the labor department and the DeKalb county schools. But that’s not why...