Radical Imagination

What would our economy look like if it put people before profits? For one thing, nobody would have to accept the sub-minimum wage of $2.13, which many states allow for restaurant workers -- a legacy of slavery that marginalizes and impoverishes a wide swath of a workforce made up largely of people of color and immigrants. In this episode of Radical Imagination, host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks...

Radical Imagination opens with a deep dive into the 1921 massacre of hundreds of Black people in the thriving business district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We examine how history books erased that atrocity and distorted so much of Black history. Host Angela Glover Blackwell talks with Hannibal B. Johnson, historian and Education Chair for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Commission, about the radical effort t...

San Francisco’s District Attorney Chesa Boudin was elected on the promise of bringing justice to the criminal "justice" system. He's part of a new wave of reform-minded prosecutors who are trying to change the system, eliminate the most harmful practices, and bring accountability to policing. Host Angela Glover Blackwell talks with Boudin about his efforts to bring fairness and compassion to a sys...

In this episode of Radical Imagination we follow up on our coverage of police abolition. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with human rights lawyer and organizer Derecka Purnell, whose advocacy has led to the dismissal of thousands of cases based on unconstitutional policing practices. We first explored the abolition movement a year ago — before the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylo...

Well before Covid-19, Black Americans struggled to access healthcare and had disproportionately high rates of chronic illness and death. Nowhere is this more glaring than in the Mississippi Delta, where Black people with diabetes are commonly treated by amputation and are three times more likely to die of the disease than their White counterparts. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with Dr. Folus...

A group of women in Hawaii are showing the nation that post-pandemic economic recovery can be visionary, just, and transformative. They have crafted a plan that centers women, insists on gender equality, and advances deep cultural change. In this episode of Radical Imagination, host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with Khara Jabola-Carolus, the executive director of Hawaii’s Commission on the Statu...

More than two million Americans live without access to clean, running water or a working toilette at home. Millions more predominantly in places like Flint, Michigan, the Navajo Nation, and migrant farmworker communities in California’s Central Valley have been disproportionately affected by high levels of led and arsenic in the water. In this episode of Radical Imagination, host Angela Glover Bla...

Host Angela Glover Blackwell talks with writer, journalist and activist Tiq Milan about the the limiting and often toxic ways our society thinks about gender, and how we can do better. While the nation has come far in its inclusion of the LGBTQ community in recent decades, we have a long way to go. At least 25 transgender or gender-non-conforming people were reported murdered in 2019, and that’s a...

As Covid-19 sweeps the world, life feels too much like science fiction. On this episode of Radical Imagination, we explore an idea that’s tailor-made for this distressing moment. It’s called visionary fiction, and it uses sci-fi and fantasy to imagine not a dystopian future, but a better world — without poverty, prisons and inequality. It’s more than a literary genre; it’s a movement of people of...

For many years, undocumented students who came to the US as minors have been excluded from getting federal funding like grants or loans for college. While 23 states grant undocumented students in-state tuition, three states - Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina - have a form of admissions ban against undocumented students. In 2010, the state banned undocumented students from applying to its top p...

We kick off season two of the Radical Imagination podcast with the story of two mothers who were experiencing homelessness. They moved into a house owned by an investment firm but sitting vacant for nearly two years. That courageous act, in Oakland, California, brought national attention to the housing crisis. Host Angela Glover Blackwell talks with Dominique Walker about why she occupied the hous...

Radical Imagination returns with host Angela Glover Blackwell in conversation with thinkers and changemakers on issues ranging from reimagining gender and visionary fiction, to housing as a human right and changing the criminal-legal system. Get ready to be enlightened, inspired, and moved to think in radically new ways.  Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that...

Imagine an America free of urban gun violence. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with Devone Boggan, CEO of Advance Peace in Richmond, California, a visionary program that offers young men with a history of gun offenses life-changing opportunities to work as community peacemakers. In this episode, the season one finale, we also hear from James Houston, who served 18 years in prison for shooting...

A federal job guarantee is an old idea making its way back this election cycle. It’s controversial and considered radical—but what makes more sense than making sure that everyone who needs a job can get one? A job guarantee would bring financial stability to millions of families. And it would put people to work doing things the nation needs, such as building affordable housing and caring for child...

Climate change will displace more than 180 million people around the world by the end of this century. Along the Gulf Coast of the United States, rising seas are already threatening historic Black and indigenous communities. In Louisiana, for example, a piece of land the size of a football disappears into the water every hour-and-a-half. In this episode, Radical Imagination host Angela Glover Blac...

No major institution in America has wrestled more deeply with the question of reparations for African Americans than Georgetown University. Five years ago, a student discovered that  Maryland Jesuits sold 272 slaves in 1838 to save the school from financial ruin. That forgotten history sparked an anguished conversation about Georgetown’s complicity in slavery and the school’s responsibility to the...

In this episode of Radical Imagination we visit Stockton, California. It was known as the nation’s foreclosure capital during the 2008 recession. Today,  it’s the first city in the country to try universal basic income as a strategy to reduce inequality and boost economic security. This bold experiment gives residents a minimum monthly salary regardless of income or employment status. Angela Glove...

As cases of police abuse and misconduct gain attention, activists have moved beyond calls for reform to advocate for the abolition of police.  It’s a controversial and widely misunderstood idea. How would police abolition work, exactly? How would we protect public safety? Radical Imagination host Angela Glover Blackwell explores these questions with humanitarian hip-hop artist Jessica Disu, a.k.a....

The United States once had open borders. Migrants from all over the world would arrive fleeing war, escaping poverty and seeking opportunity. Open borders made our country strong. But many Americans today are horrified — or frightened — by the idea of “open borders.” Harsh new immigration policies are making it more difficult than ever to come to the U.S. or even ask for asylum. Nevertheless, viol...

A podcast focused on stories and solutions that are fueling change.  Features conversations with thinkers and changemakers from multiple fields who are wielding instruments of influence — academia, activism, media, government — to deliver equity wins at scale.  Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us