Three for the Founders

What do YOU think? Text us! He grew up on the south side of Santa Monica, surfing a mediocre break and guarding it like home turf. He pledged a Black fraternity, played piano on a national TV talent show, and was told by the producers that he was exactly what the show was looking for. Then he walked away from all of it. In Episode 55 of Three for the Founders , the second of our three biographical...

What do YOU think? Text us! If your family never lived in the South, is lynching still your history? Is not knowing ever innocent, or is it always a choice? When Shaq pins on an FBI badge, is that service or selling out? When you spot another person of color in a mostly white workplace, how do you know if they're with the lions or with you? And, who actually gets invited into your home? Jon,...

What do YOU think? Text us! A sixth grader watches a basketball game, picks his college off the vibe, writes it down, and works. Six years later, a thin envelope shows up-Congratulations! This week, we sit down with our brother Lybroan "the MathMan" James for the real story. Radical honesty at the dinner table. Mickey Mouse as a lesson on America. A Range Rover, a hot hood, and a badge t...

What do YOU think? Text us! We call it the Civil War. They called it slavery. But sure, let's keep using the nice name. Very generous of us. A new episode of Three for the Founders is up, featuring a Frustrated Historian! He’ll be connecting some dots: a lost cause, executive orders, white-washing history, the insurrections we forget, and a QR code at a concentration camp asking visitors when...

What do YOU think? Text us! Name a song you loved before you actually understood what it was saying. What changed when you finally heard the lyrics? Can we teach rhythm? Is rap music, or is it "just a beat without a melody"? Where's the line between Kendrick, Shakespeare, and needing to know what they're talking about? If shared rhythms build empathy, what's one song outsi...

What do YOU think? Text us! Can a sing-along save the nation? Before there was a Constitution, there was a drumbeat in Congo Square — do you still hear it? Have you ever stood in a room of strangers — different politics, different pain — and felt it all dissolve into one held note? A blue note bent by enslaved people’s pain became the blues, jazz, and rock and roll that conquered the world — what...

What do YOU think? Text us! We had to keep talking about Nolan Xavier Wells. Kohen Wiley. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Alex Pretti. Renée Nicole Good. Keith Porter, Jr. Corey Ruiz. Five questions we need you sitting with: Why are we still meeting people as hashtags? Why does Black and brown justice depend on strangers with cell phones? Is there a rhythm to cop killing? W...

What do YOU think? Text us! What if the most dangerous racism isn't the kind that screams at you — but the kind that quietly shows up in your mortgage, your paycheck, and the words coming out of your own mouth? When you can trace a straight line from a cotton field to a Wall Street bond prospectus, the question isn't whether systemic racism exists — it's whether you're ready to...

What do YOU think? Text us! World Cup Chaos, Colonial Ghosts, and the Weight of Melanin The fellas dive headfirst into World Cup madness — a suspicious red card reversal, questions of who really "counts" as French, and the quiet power of watching Black players from Texas to Sweden claim the pitch. From Azteca Stadium heartbreak to a deep cut on Belgium's colonial body count in the C...

What do YOU think? Text us! What's good, fam — welcome back to Three for the Founders , where Brotherhood meets the breakdown. Look, every now and then we get a guest who reminds us why we started this show in the first place. Today's that episode. We're sitting down with a man we're calling "Mr. Nobody" — an active commercial airline captain who's been flying si...

What do YOU think? Text us! THREE FOR THE FOUNDERS — Episode 45 "The Talk (SPF Edition)" What does sunscreen have to do with racism? More than you think. This week on Three for the Founders , what starts as a casual scroll through Threads — while nursing a dog with a neck abscess, because that's how we live — turns into one of the sharpest conversations we've had about white de...

What do YOU think? Text us! "Art Versus Artist, Power Structures, and Huerta’s Revelation” Okay. Stay with me here. Because this one requires you to hold two truths at the same time — and if you’re not used to doing that, today’s episode is going to be uncomfortable. Good. Here’s what we know: Dolores Huerta — farmworker organizer, civil rights icon, the woman who stood next to César Chávez f...

What do YOU think? Text us! “The Map Is the Message” The Supreme Court just redrew the rules — and not in your favor. In a decision that strips race from the redistricting equation, the Roberts Court has handed white supremacy one of its cleanest legislative victories in decades. No hoods. No poll taxes. Just math — and maps drawn to make sure your vote counts less than your neighbor’s. This week,...

What do YOU think? Text us! Commemoration is never just ceremony. Every holiday, every monument, every flag is a choice about whose story gets to be the nation's story. When that choice has consistently excluded the enslaved, the colonized, and the dishonored veteran, the radical act is not destruction — it is insistence . Insisting that the full truth be told. Insisting that the buried be na...

What do YOU think? Text us! Five years. That's it. In 250 years of American history, the United States has been at peace for roughly five years. So what does it mean to wave the flag? To say "thank you for your service"? To call this country a democracy? In Episode 41, Antonio, Lybroan, and Jon don't flinch. They open with Jon's debrief from a white educator affinity sessi...

What do YOU think? Text us! Season 2 | Airing Monday, April 27, 2026 Some episodes are too good to stay in the vault. Originally recorded as the Season 1 finale, Episode 40 never made it to air — until now. Consider it a gift from the archives, and the perfect bridge into everything Season 2 is becoming. Reynaldo, Lybroan, and Jon go deep on something deceptively simple: your name. What it carries...

What do YOU think? Text us! April 20, 2026 Before we begin — a word of care. Today’s episode includes discussion of sexual assault, harm to children, and various forms of violence. Please listen in a way that honors your own wellbeing. There’s a reason we build monuments — and a reason that word carries weight when it turns. When Dolores Huerta speaks, the world listens. And when she confirmed wha...

What do YOU think? Text us! "It Does Matter If You're Black or White" Three for the Founders | Episode 38 | April 13, 2026 | 1 hr. 11 min. The best episodes of Three for the Founders do what the best public radio rarely does anymore: they hold two enormous ideas in the same room without forcing a tidy resolution. Episode 38 is exactly that kind of hour. Lybroan James returns from a...

What do YOU think? Text us! What do you get when three Sigmas start talking about Black nationalism and end up deep in a debate about dog training costs? A bonus episode of Three for the Founders , that's what. The guys open with a pointed question contrasting Black and White nationalism — and how Christian nationalism fits into that conversation — before Obi-Wan the 80-pound problem child hi...

What do YOU think? Text us! Airing March 30, 2026 | 1 hr, 57 min We open, as all great intellectual journeys do, with a word: kerfuffle . Turns out it’s Scottish. Turns out the “fuffle” means to dishevel and the “car-” is a Gaelic twist. Turns out Antonio, Jon, and Lybroan will spend a not-insignificant portion of your Monday morning defending this information with the energy of men who just found...

What do YOU think? Text us! Three for the Founders | New Episode — Live Recording Feb. 21, 2026 · 51 min Three fraternity brothers. One live room. No easy answers. In this week's episode, Reynaldo Antonio, Jon, and Lybroan gather an audience and go somewhere most institutions won't: an honest reckoning with how history gets taught, who belongs in independent schools, and what DEI actuall...

What do YOU think? Text us! Let us ask you something before we even get started. Do you believe what the founders wrote — or what the founders did? Welcome back to Three for the Founders — where Brotherhood meets the breakdown. But first — we have to show some love. Shoutout to Lorelei Newman, UCLA alum, who found this podcast at what sounds like a pivotal moment in her life. She sent us a message...

What do YOU think? Text us! Three for the Founders | Bonus Episode "Hot Takes, Heartfelt Dads & Bringing POCC Home" Feb 23, 2026 • 22 min Fraternity brothers Reynaldo Antonio, Lybroan, and Jon jump back in for a bonus round that moves fast and hits deep. First up: is Stephen A. Smith's $100M ESPN deal turning "the people's voice" into controversy-for-profit — and...

What do YOU think? Text us! Season 2. Episode 2. This one doesn’t ease you in—it drops you straight into the fire. On Episode 32 of Three for the Founders , four longtime friends—Antonio, Jon , Lybroan , and guest David M. Jones—sit with the hardest questions of this moment: ICE, protest, power, and moral responsibility. What does resistance actually do ? When does nonviolence persuade—and when do...

What do YOU think? Text us! Season Two of Three for the Founders kicks off exactly where America gets uncomfortable: at the gap between the quote and the policy. Recorded on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and launching February 2, 2026, this season premiere opens with a toast to brotherhood—and immediately asks the question nobody wants answered out loud: how do you celebrate the Dream on Monday and d...