Teach the Babies w/ Dr. David J. Johns

Dr. Bianca Baldridge is back in the class—and this time she brought her new book. Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University and former youth worker for over two decades, Dr. Baldridge has spent her career shining light on the spaces where Black children are seen, held, and loved outside of school walls. Her new book, Laboring in the Shadows: Precarity and Promise in Black Youth Work (...

Dreisen Heath doesn't do sequencing. She doesn't want the appetizer. She doesn't want to wait for the main course. She wants the whole menu—reparations legislation, economic justice, striking the punishment clause from the 13th Amendment, restored benefits for Black veterans, and protected Black history and cultural institutions. All of it. All at once. In this episode, Dr. David Johns sits down w...

Freedom Summer didn't end in 1964 — it lives in every classroom, every protest, every young person who picks up a book and sees themselves as their own liberator. In this conversation, Dr. David J. Johns sits down with his sister and colleague Dr. Brittany Packnett Cunningham — strategist, educator, Webby Award-winning host of UNDISTRACTED, and Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of the Chil...

Tiffany Dena Loftin has been in this work for over two decades — from a TRIO student at UC Santa Cruz organizing against tuition hikes, to leading the United States Student Association, to fighting for student debt cancellation at the NAACP and the Debt Collective. She's a labor organizer, a voting rights strategist, a founding member of Freedom Side, and one of the most disciplined relationship b...

Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter is back in the classroom — and this time, the lesson is urgent. One week out from Equity Week 2026, Dr. Hunter — professor of sociology and African American studies, author of Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation, and NBJC board member — walks us through everything you need to know. Why the week exists. Who it was built for. What it asks of you. Then we go de...

There are moments in this work when you sit across from someone and realize you're not just talking to a lawyer. You're talking to a son. A keeper. A man who has spent his entire adult life making sure that what happened in Greenwood — and what Greenwood actually was before they burned it down — is never forgotten and never left unanswered. This week, we’re joined by civil rights attorney, author,...

This one is different. No guest. Just me—and the truth I can't stop sitting with. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is gone. Not weakened. Not under threat. Gone. The legal architecture that turned 7% Black voter registration in Mississippi into 60%—dismantled, decision by decision, by a Supreme Court that was never neutral and was never on our side. But that's not even the whole story. Because while...

Jamilah Lemieux is a writer, cultural critic, and — officially, loudly, and necessarily — a published author. Her debut book, Black. Single. Mother.: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging, dropped in March 2026, and it is already doing exactly what the best books do: making people uncomfortable in the most clarifying ways. In this conversation, Jamilah and I go deep. We talk about what Aunt Ton...

The news cycle will not save you. This month, Dr. David J. Johns breaks down the stories that slid quietly past the headlines while our communities’ futures were being decided. We open with a win—the Global Black Economic Forum sued the state of Texas for stripping HUB certifications from 15,000 minority- and women-owned businesses, and on April 13th, a Travis County judge said: not so fast. Then...

What does it actually take to build a democracy that lasts—and who has always done that work? In this class session, Dr. David J. Johns sits down with award-winning political strategist, founder of Omara Strategy Group, and author Atima Omara to dig into her new book, The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential to American Democracy (HarperCollins, May 5, 2026). From the Javits Center to...

What if the technology deciding your housing, your credit, your medical care, and your freedom was never designed with you in mind? Julie Wenah has been inside the rooms where those decisions get made-at NASA, the Obama White House, Airbnb, and Meta-and she's done something rare: she came back to tell us what she saw. In this conversation, digital civil rights lawyer, tech executive, and Chairwoma...

AI is already here. The question is whether it's working for you—or leaving you behind. In this conversation, Dr. David J. Johns sits down with Dee C. Marshall, CEO of AI Training Plus, creator of the Free by 3™ methodology, and founder of the inaugural Global AI Adoption Day—a people-first movement she's building to be for AI literacy what International Women's Day is for gender equity. Dee break...

Vouchers aren't new—they're the same resistance to integration we've been fighting since 1954. Fred Jones (Southern Education Foundation) joins the class to trace a direct line from Brown v. Board of Education to today's federal tax credit voucher program. The history is ugly: after Brown, Southern states created 450 laws to block desegregation. They funneled public money to "segregation academies...

In this conversation, Dr. David Johns welcomes back a colleague, a co-conspirator, and a genuine friend from their Obama White House days—Dr. Zakiya Smith Ellis—for an honest, urgent, and surprisingly joyful conversation about the state of public education in America and what it demands of all of us, in spite of this moment. Zakiya brings her full toolkit: the policy precision of a former Senior A...

What does it really cost to be yourself in America—and who gets to decide if you're "real" enough? In this class session, Dr. David J. Johns sits down with political strategist, presidential campaign trailblazer, and debut author Maya Rupert to dig into The Real Ones: How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic—a book written not just for people who've lived the cost of inauthent...

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to just exist? Not shrink, not apologize, not mold yourself into what somebody else needs—but to simply take up space? Dr. David Johns sits down with trailblazer Tess Holliday—one of the world's most recognized plus-size models, the first of her size to be signed to a major agency, and creator of the viral "Eff Your Beauty Standards" campaign. To...

Dr. David J. Johns sits down with fellow TIME Magazine 2025 "Closer" Dr. Monique Couvson, President and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color. Dr. Couvson has moved over $26 million to more than 400 organizations by putting young people at the decision-making table. She challenges us to transform schools from places that demand endless resilience into locations for healing, and shares why bringing...

Dr. Christina Grant returns to Teach the Babies with an urgent message: the decline of learning in America should be considered a national emergency. From her work leading the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard to serving on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Dr. Grant breaks down what's actually working in education recovery—and what we're missing in the c...

What happens when the process meant to deliver justice becomes part of the problem? Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter, author of Radical Reparations and professor at UCLA, was denied even the chance to compete for Washington State's groundbreaking reparations study—not because his proposal wasn't strong enough, but because it allegedly got lost in malware. No portal. No receipt. No accountability. And whe...

What does leadership look like when your city is under federal occupation? When ICE agents are killing civilians in your streets? When thousands of your neighbors are being hunted, arrested, and deported—and you're the one people are looking to for answers? In this urgent conversation, Dr. David Johns sits down with Minneapolis City Council Member Robin Wonsley, the council's Minority Leader and t...

On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet, in Minneapolis. One week earlier, an off-duty ICE agent killed Keith Porter Jr., a Black father of two, on New Year's Eve in Los Angeles. No charges have been filed in either case. Dr. Jason Johnson—professor, MSNBC contributor, and political analyst—argues that Democrats should make aboli...

In this urgent conversation, immigration attorney Allen Orr—the first Black president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and founder of Orr Immigration Law Firm—breaks down what's really happening with ICE enforcement across the country. We discuss: The truth behind "Operation Metro Surge" and mass raids Why 75,000 people with NO criminal record were arrested What happened to the 2 US...

Dr. Chris Pernell joins the class for a conversation that is equal parts urgent and tender. As a public health physician, strategist, and NAACP Fellow, Dr. Pernell breaks down the Black maternal health crisis with unflinching clarity: racism kills. She unpacks how the medical industrial complex fails Black mothers, offers practical advocacy tools for birthing people and their loved ones, and navig...

Preston Mitchum returns fresh from a wedding that was equal parts celebration and declaration. He opens up about the revolutionary act of Black men loving Black men, what it means to center abundance and joy, and how chosen family showed up in full force. As a policy advocate working at the intersections of race, sexuality, and gender, Preston also breaks down what's at stake in the 2026 midterms—...

What does healthy love look like for Black people navigating a world that doesn't always welcome our relationships? In this powerful conversation, Prince Amari—the first certified Black gay matchmaker in the love industry—breaks down the four essential components of lasting love and why representation in relationships matters just as much as representation in media. From his journey as a dancer at...