This Civic Moment

Join us for the finale of Season 3! This episode was recorded live on Monday, April 3, 2023, at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.   It features Kelly McGowan, founder of Transform 314, and Shavanna Spratt, Creator & Host of Da Hood Talks podcast. Monday Nite Live is a St. Louis-based YouTube series that features drama...

Annie Rice is a former Alderperson who represented the 8th Ward of St. Louis from 2018 to 2023. Prior to her aldermanic election, Annie was the Democratic Committeewoman for that same ward and represented the 5th Senate District to the Missouri Democratic Party. She recently completed a four year term on the Board of the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project and has a background in...

Blake Strode is the Executive Director of Arch City Defenders, a nonprofit civil rights law firm in St. Louis, Missouri providing holistic legal advocacy and combating the criminalization of poverty and state violence against poor people and people of color. He is also a Co-host of Under the Arch podcast, which discusses issues impacting the St. Louis community and the people working to change the...

Tony Messenger is the Metro Columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, writing four columns a week in a position he has held since September 2016. He joined the Post-Dispatch in 2008 as a capital correspondent and political columnist in Jefferson City. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for a series of articles written in 2018 on debtors' prisons in rural Missouri. In this episode, Tony...

Dr. John Inazu is a Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis and a Senior Fellow with  Interfaith America . He is also an author and Founder of The Carver Project, a non-profit that connects students and faculty to community engagement through their Christian faith. Professor Inazu’s scholarship focuses on the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion, a...

Dr. Punch is a trauma surgeon and the Executive Director and founder of Power 4 Stl and “The T” . He also serves as Medical Director at the Bullet Related Injury Clinic , a community-based free clinic that focuses on the experience of the Black masculine body. In the wake of the Ferguson Uprising, LJ moved to St. Louis to join the faculty at the School of Medicine at Washington University, but has...

Aaron Naparstek '93 is a co-host, producer, and creator of  The War on Cars , a popular podcast dedicated to pushing back against the pernicious effects of car culture and automobile dominance. He is also the founder and former editor-in-chief of  Streetsblog , a publication covering urban transportation, land use and environmental issues, with outlets in six U.S. cities.   In this episode, A...

There’s a lot of terminology around elections – mail-in ballots, absentee voting, midterms – that can seem inaccessible to people just beginning to vote for the first time. Here’s a short introduction to what you need to know to make sure your vote counts. In this special Voter Series of This Civic Moment, our host, Otto Brown, talks to Co-chair of WashU Votes, Spencer Chrein about the logistics o...

Jason Rosenbaum, St. Louis Public Radio Politics Correspondent, is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Since starting his career in the mid-2000s, Rosenbaum has covered politics, policy and rock and roll music for various media outlets, including the Columbia Daily Tribune, St. Louis Beacon, and the Riverfront Times.  In this episode, Rosenbaum joins Louis Damani Jo...

Author Vivian Gibson , joins us to discuss factors impacting the decline of the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood. Her memoir, The Last Children of Mill Creek, documents the nation’s largest urban renewal project and its consequences on the black community through stories from her childhood in St. Louis. In this episode of This Civic Moment, our hosts welcome Vivian Gibson. This podcast, hosted by th...

Lane Koch is a conservative grassroots strategist, writer, speaker, political commentator, and Vice President of C3 Public Strategies. In 2020, Lane founded Grassroots Girl, a consulting brand specializing in providing customized voter-contact platforms, ballot initiatives, and more. In September 2021, Core Strategic Group acquired Grassroots Girl. Passionate about helping all people to fulfill th...

Ray Boshara is senior advisor for the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where he focuses on building savings and wealth inclusively. He is also a senior fellow in the Financial Security Program at the Aspen Institute. In this episode of This Civic Moment, our hosts Louis Damani Jones and Bethany Copeland, Engage Democracy Fellows at the Gephardt Institute for...

Caroline Fan is an activist, consultant, and founder and president of the Missouri Asian American Youth Foundation . In this episode of This Civic Moment, Caroline discusses the importance of representation, nuances of language, and the public perception of Asian American identity through stories from her lived experience.

Mike Jones II, Ph. D., is an Associate Director, Community Science with the Race & Opportunity Lab at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University. He is a native Saint Louisan and is passionate about his hometown’s ability to increase our capacity by building the necessary infrastructure and support systems for marginalized populations.  In this episode, Dr. Jones, a self-dec...

Ness Sandoval, Ph. D, is associate director of Saint Louis University’s Geospatial Institute (GeoSLU) and an associate professor of sociology at SLU. In this episode, Dr. Sandoval traces his journey from a small town in Nebraska to his current role at Saint Louis University teaching students to leverage data to interrogate and better understand our shared experiences. Dr. Sandvoal and This Civic M...

Representative Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) joins This Civic Moment to discuss her pathway to the Illinois General Assembly, and the lessons learned in public service that continue to shape her leadership and civic engagement journey. Rep. Bourne is joined on the podcast by hosts Louis Damani Jones and Bethany Copeland, Engage Democracy Fellows at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community E...

Former Congressman Richard (Dick) A. Gephardt served for 28 years in the United States House of Representatives from 1976 to 2004, representing Missouri's 3rd Congressional District, home to his birthplace St. Louis. He was elected to serve as House Democratic Leader for more than 14 years, as House Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995 and Minority Leader from 1995 to 2003. Mr. Gephardt ran as a Demo...

Dr. Kira Hudson Banks is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Saint Louis University. She is co-founder of the Institute for Healing Justice and Equity at Saint Louis University, and has served as a racial equity consultant for the Ferguson Commission and Racial Equity Catalyst for Forward Through Ferguson. Along with that work, she is co-principal of The Mouse and the Elephant, an innovative d...

Scott Faughn is the editor and founder of the Missouri Times and host of one of the leading shows on Missouri politics, "This Week in Missouri Politics."

Rabbi Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, the only Jewish Congregation located within the city limits of St. Louis.

Evan Krauss is the Director of East Side Aligned, a Collective Impact process that works to align policy, practice and investment across sectors to improve outcomes for young people in East St. Louis and surrounding regions. 

This Civic Moment is a podcast of the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University in St. Louis. Engage Democracy | Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement | Washington University in St. Louis (wustl.edu) Follow us for discussions with civic and community leaders on what it means to be civically engaged.