National Radio Project

Joshua Potash, a New York City-based anti-capitalist abolitionist discusses the history and theory behind mutual aid with our partners at The Response Podcast.

On today's show we learn about worker cooperatives: what are they and can they offer an alternative to the dominant capitalist mindset? Our partner podcast Upstream brings us to a bike and skate shop in Richmond, CA that's providing a much-needed service to its community, while also empowering its own workers, in this story that first aired in 2018.

This week on Making Contact we continue with our look at a community of unhoused people in Echo Park in Los Angeles, California and how they were forcibly evicted by police despite an enormous show of support from protesters. Thanks to our podcast partners at 70 Million we bring you part two of “Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused.”

Thousands of social justice leaders in communities all over the world passed away this year.

We're closing out the year, as we usually do, with inspiring words from some of the Fallen Heroes of 2022.

In the midst of our stress and trauma dealing with the sometimes harsh realities of life, its hard to imagine what stories we will ultimately tell our children and grandchildren. This week's Making Contact is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families.

This week, we explore an often-overlooked issue in the Arab world; racism towards Black Arabs. In this episode, Kerning Culture reporter Ahmed Twaij looks at racism in his own community, taking us from his Iraqi roots, through to modern day slurs still commonly used in many Arab communities around the world.  

In this special mini-episode, producer Amy Gastelum sits down with Rebecca Piazza to learn more about WIC, and what the program is doing to try and increase its low participation rates.

Federal food programs, like WIC, face big changes coming out of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. Meanwhile, a single moms collective in Ohio holds it down for the single pregnant and parenting people in their community. Motherful's resource pantry serves their 325-strong membership out of a garage three times a week.  We talk to members and founders to learn what's it's like to participate, how it all started and where food justice is headed for them now and in their wildest dreams.  

As climate change melts the polar ice caps and raises sea levels, how will we adapt? We visit two locations: On Sapelo Island Georgia, the last remaining Gullah Geechee community fights to save their ancestral lands from the flood waters. Instead of leaving their land, or building a giant sea wall, they've chosen to use oysters to create what's called a living shoreline. We take a look at how they're built and if they're working. Meanwhile, in New York, the Army Corps wants to construct seagates to protect the city from another Hurricane Sandy. But, the gates could have massive ecological repercussions and, they might not even work. Scientists think there's a better way to work with the local ecology and protect residents. 

What does food mean to identities struggling against colonialism and displacement? First, we visit the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as members of Indigikitchen harvest bison and talk about Native food systems. Then, we head to Bloomington, Indiana where a young archeology professor has brought methods of growing and sharing food from the deeper past to a modern Latino diaspora.  

Mutual aid efforts to provide pregnancy prevention and medical abortion in post-Roe southern United States. 

Our friends from the podcast The Response bring us their piece Abortion Access and Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Landscape, plus a quick update on how the issue of abortion access impacted the 2022 midterms. 

Groups all over Latin America turn to the age-old practice of communal cooking to feed citizens during pandemic lockdowns. A Buenos Aires arts organization solidifies their community, and a Peruvian architect brings new ways of building to the hillsides of Lima. 

This week on Making Contact - with assistance from our podcast partners, 70 million - we head to the state of Alaska, where rising violent crime and substance abuse have increased incarceration rates among Native Americans. Making use of their legal sovereignty, some Alaskan Native leaders issue “blue tickets,” documents that sentence offenders to legal expulsion. Journalist Emily Schwing looked into these banishment practices and their impacts on those affected by both tribal and state criminal justice systems. 

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.  

One child’s experience in a neighborhood with high asthma rates and other health challenges. 

We talk to Raj Patel and Rupa Marya about their new book "Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice."

In today's episode, Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs tells the birth story of the book she co-edited with China Martens and Mai'a Williams, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines and gives context to the book with stories of the Reproductive Justice Movement.

Nagi Daifallah was a young farm worker from Yemen who participated in the 1973 Grape Strike along with the UFW until he was murdered by a Sheriff. We visit his story via our friends at Kerning Cultures. 

 

In some parts of the world, traditional herbal remedies are the norm.  When we  think of natural remedies we tend to think of older generations living in remote areas, in far away  countries,  with little access to modern healthcare.  We rarely think about the ancient medicinal plants that might exist in our very own cities. On today's episode we look at plant and herb medicines through the lens of Michele E. Lee the author of Working The Roots.  

In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on energy poverty. When temperatures rise to the point where they become dangerous, what happens to people who can’t escape the heat? As temperatures continue to soar and extreme heatwaves become the norm, a lack of resources to stay cool — so, having access to things like air conditioning, for example, — is a huge issue across the world. To find out how people are fighting energy poverty, we visit southern Europe, a region that experienced a series of record-breaking, climate-fueled heatwaves this past summer. Today’s episode comes to us from our friends at The Response podcast.

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

What does food mean to identities struggling against colonialism and displacement? First, we visit the Blackfeet Nation in Montana as members of Indigikitchen harvest bison and talk about native food systems. Then, we head to Bloomington, Indiana where a young archeology professor has brought methods of growing and sharing food from the deeper past to a modern Latino diaspora.

While wages have flatlined for most working-class people, rents have reached new highs, leaving most people struggling. But it’s not just in the US. The rising cost of living has affected the entire world. Samuel Stein’s new book, Capital City and the Real Estate State, highlights the growing influence of investment capital into land as the driving force behind gentrification and the power developers have over city and local governments. We talk to Samuel about the rise of the global real estate market and we look at how radical city planning, rent control and socialized land projects can help fight gentrification.

New York City taxi drivers were drowning in debt because they had to buy their licenses from the city. We join our friends at the podcast Self-Evident to take a look at the hunger strike they used to renegotiate the terms of their debt.

This week, we bring you a story from our podcast partner Kerning Cultures about Patrice Lumumba’s children, and their escape to Cairo. 

More and more coastal communities want to build sea walls to prevent catastrophic flooding because of rising sea levels. But do they work? We talk about the risks of the planned seagates in New York and we visit Sapelo Island Georgia to learn about how to Gullah Geechee community plans to defend their ancestral lands by using a natural shoreline, built of oysters.

This week on Making Contact, we look at Bail Reform in the state of Texas with the help of our podcast partners 70 Million. For conservative lawmakers and bail reform advocates have long debated what bail reform can look like for those who cannot afford to bail themselves out of jail.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors are much more likely than their straight counterparts to be alone and isolated as they age. Housing and support for these elders is a growing need--and the issue is not confined to the United States. In this edition, we'll visit Jakarta Indonesia, and Los Angeles, California, to hear stories of building housing and community for LGBTQ seniors.

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the Web at www.radioproject.org.

We revisit a major race debate within the Romance Writers of America that began in 2019 and talk about why questions of race in art and in institutions are so relevant in today's America. This is a two part series.

The Palestine Broadcasting Service started airing in 1936, from a brand new transmitter tower in Ramallah. It was a British station in three languages, aimed at promoting the message of the mandate government throughout the region. But over the following decades, as Palestine saw political upheavals, bloody conflicts and power shifts, the radio station found itself in the middle of it all, and became a unique capsule of the events that lead up to the Nakba. This story originally aired on Kerning Cultures, a podcast telling stories from across the Middle East and North Africa and the spaces in between.

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

On today's program we honor Bayard Rustin, one of the most central figures in the African American struggle for Civil Rights and Freedom. Rustin was a pacifist, homosexual and practitioner of nonviolence who dedicated his life to racial equality, economic justice and ending warfare. 

This episode explores the story of Billy Taing, a Cambodian refugee who got caught up in the US criminal justice system at a young age.

Nearly two thirds of all children in the U.S. juvenile justice system are kids of color. That’s according to a report by the Children’s Defense Fund. In this episode of Making Contact, we’ll hear from Dr. Kris Henning on the disparities faced by Black youth in the juvenile justice system.

A year ago, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize drug possession. The goal is to reverse some of the negative impacts of the War on Drugs by approaching drug use from a health-centered basis. Reporter Cecilia Brown visits an addiction and recovery center in Portland that’s gearing up for what they hope will be an influx of people seeking treatment.

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the Web at www.radioproject.org.

This week, Making Contact’s Jessica Partnow offers a look at the state of Russian youth activism from 2012 to today. She revisits her reporting from Ukraine and Russia and speaks with the people in those stories against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine today. In the first part of the show she shares the story of re-connecting with her childhood pen pal Sasha, a Ukrainian boy who witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union and is now fighting to protect his country from the Russian invasion, through the eyes of his younger sister Anna who is now living in the US and desperately trying to stay connected with her Ukrainian family and friends under siege. After the break, we meet Vassili, a Muscovite who has always been proud of his country but is now grappling with a grim view of its future.

Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the Web at www.radioproject.org.

Jeremy Menchik volunteered for Moderna’s vaccine trials, wanting to help end the COVID pandemic. However, as Moderna continues to hold patent rights and refuses to openly share their vaccine technology, Jeremy began to feel conflicted. He has since publicly quit as a volunteer and urges others to do the same, until everyone can freely access the vaccine. Listen to our interview with Jeremy on this special edition of Making Contact, an extra to our larger show on vaccine equality.

 On Dec. 11, 2021, the UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building was officially named the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center, in honor of a civil and worker rights icon who has been teaching at UCLA for the last 2 decades. In this episode of Re:Work, 93-year-old Rev. Lawson shares stories from his youth, and how he came to discover soul force and the path of nonviolence.

 

Through the work and birth stories of midwife Allegra Hill, the producers of Re:Work Radio explain how Black midwives in Los Angeles are helping women to experience empowered births.

Police encounters during a mental health crisis have a greater chance of turning deadly if you're Black. New response mechanisms bypass law enforcement and result in helpful interventions. Reporter Jenee Darden looks at how folks in Northern California are trying to reimagine crisis response services.

While Black women have played a critical role in the development of the nation, their stories have been mostly overlooked. In the new book, A Black Women’s History of the United States, historians Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross honor the many significant contributions of Black women who have worked tirelessly to build this country and fight for social justice in the face of racism and sexism.

In this encore episode, we look at how COVID-19 has torn through prisons and how organizers are trying to push state and local governments to release inmates in order to contain the spread of the pandemic. In part one, we focus on California. We take a look at why a prison, like San Quentin, is such a perfect environment for infectious diseases, especially an airborne one like COVID-19, how we might safely release large amounts of inmates across the prison system, and what we’ve learned from past release programs like realignment.

A legal matrix that incentivizes criminal convictions can motivate unethical prosecutors to bend or break the rules. In New York, a group of law professors is trying to curb that by pushing the system to discipline its own. Reported by Nina Sparling.

When India went into lockdown in 2020, millions of jobs disappeared and tens of millions of migrant workers struggled to get home, often on foot. Many died attempting the journey. This week, we bring you the story of one man who left his village as a child to earn money to support his family.

In our annual Fallen Heroes episode, we share words of inspiration from, and about some lesser-known grassroots activists who passed away in 2021.

In this special year-end episode, Making Contact producers and staff turn the spotlight on some the best shows they aired in 2021.

The world is struggling to contain COVID-19, as variants continue to emerge in countries where the virus is spreading unchecked, killing thousands. Not only could widespread vaccination campaigns help slow the virus, they would save countless lives. So why can’t countries in the global south access the novel COVID-19 vaccines? We take a deep dive into the world of international patents and talk about what needs to change in order to create a more just, global, medical system.

When communities face the aftermath of catastrophes, what does it take to ensure that the next time will be different? In Houston, it takes a city council member who bicycles in her neighborhood to hear from constituents about what they need most. It takes 12 moms who organize to take legal action against the landlords that have kept their families in moldy, substandard apartments.  In this fourth episode of the podcast But Next Time hosts Chrishelle Palay and Rose Arrieta head back to Houston to meet organizers making a difference.

In cities around the globe community organizers and direct service agencies are often the first line of response when a climate fueled natural disaster strikes. In this third episode of the podcast But Next Time we meet organizers in Houston and Puerto Rico whose shared experiences of hurricane response bind them together in the effort to assure next time things will be different.

We’re popping into your feed today with a quick announcement for fans of Making Contact. We know you love the show, and right now we’ve got an extra special opportunity for your support to go twice as far.

Every donation you send to Making Contact through the end of the year will be doubled by NewsMatch! And if you sign up as a new monthly sustainer, your donation will be matched all year long.

You can visit our donation page to make your gift right away, or click to listen to this special year-end message from our board of directors.

https://makingcontact.networkforgood.com/projects/39193-making-contact-year-round

Our radio adaptation of the film Beyond Recognition by Underexposed films, "After decades struggling to protect her ancestors’ burial places, a Native woman from a non-federally recognized Ohlone tribe and her allies occupy a sacred site to prevent its desecration. They then vow to follow a new path- to establish the first women-led urban Indigenous land trust. 

There’s a place in rural St. Johns, Arizona, where teens who have encounters with officers of the law can play pool, make music, and get mentored instead of going to jail. It’s called The Loft, and it’s the brainchild of a judge who wanted to save the county hundreds of millions of dollars and divert young people towards the support many were not getting at home.

In some parts of the world, traditional herbal remedies are the norm.  When we  think of natural remedies we tend to think of older generations living in remote areas, in far away  countries,  with little access to modern healthcare.  We rarely think about the ancient medicinal plants that might exist in our very own cities. On today's episode we look at plant and herb medicines through the lens of Michele E. Lee the author of Working The Roots.  

One of the most common forms of trafficking is labor trafficking. In this episode, Re:Work Radio brings you the story of Lester Ramos and his journey from the Philippines. Later in the broadcast, we hear from Filipino migration expert, Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, on the circumstances in the Philippines and the US that drive Filipinos to work abroad.

In today’s program, sociology professor Lisa Hajjar traces the rise and fall of torture after 9/11. She examines the ways in which torture and the fight against it have altered the legal terrain on torture in the United States, and potentially on a global scale.

Nearly one in two Black women in the US have a loved one who has been impacted by our prison system. Many become de facto civilian experts as a result. Some rise to lead as  catalysts for change. And now, scores of Black women are joining the ranks—as officers of the court, police, and judges—to manage and advance a system that has had such an outsized impact on their lives. On today's episode we look at the many ways Black women are leading the conversation around policy and reform within the criminal justice system. 

As fires ravaged California's world-famous wine country in 2017, a community radio station, emergency dispatcher, and tenant organizers helped the most vulnerable in their community survive and recover. Community organizers and hosts of the podcasts But Next Time Chrishelle Palay and Rose Arrieta bring us the first of four stories of hard-won lessons learned from people on the frontlines of California’s wildfires and Texas’ storms as they work to answer the question, how can next time be different? 

As fires ravaged California's world-famous wine country in 2017,a community radio station, emergency dispatcher, and tenant organizers helped the most vulnerable in their community survive and recover. Community organizers and hosts of the podcasts But Next Time Chrishelle Palay and Rose Arrieta bring us the first of four stories of hard-won lessons learned from people on the frontlines of California’s wildfires and Texas’ storms as they work to answer the question, how can next time be different? 

How will demographic shifts affect redistricting in 2021?

Latinos are the second largest ethnic group in the U.S. In California, the Latinos grew to 39% of the population, surpassing whites as the largest ethnic group. Meanwhile, the white population decreased nationwide for the first time.

While Black women have played a critical role in the development of the nation, their stories have been mostly overlooked. In the new book, A Black Women’s History of the United States, historians Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross honor the many significant contributions of Black women who have worked tirelessly to build this country and fight for social justice in the face of racism and sexism.

Through the work and birth stories of midwife, Allegra Hill, the producers of Re:Work Radio explain how Black midwives in Los Angeles are helping women to experience empowered births.

September 11th, 2021 marks 20 years since the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Today, we turn our attention not to the tragedy of 9/11 itself, but to 9/11 as an inflection point in U.S. culture and policy in two areas: domestic surveillance in the form of fusion centers, and the rise and fall of the use of torture in the War on Terror.

The COVID 19 pandemic has transformed all of our lives in some way. But some are feeling the impacts more than others. Take healthcare workers, for example: As the United States surpasses 38 million COVID-19 cases and 637,000 deaths as of August 28th, 2021, many healthcare workers continue to be overloaded by caring for COVID-19 patients. Globally, COVID-19 has presented unique challenges, leading to increased mental health issues among healthcare workers.

Others are feeling the impacts while struggling to find or maintain housing, and balance parenting during the pandemic.

Fifty-one years ago, 30,000 people peacefully protested the disproportionate number of Latinos dying on the frontlines in Vietnam. The August 29^th Chicano Moratorium ended with an attack by police, 400 arrests, and the deaths of four people, one of whom was Los Angeles Times journalist Rubén Salazar.

On June 14, 2017, a fire started in a 24-story public housing apartment in West London called Grenfell Tower. The fire raged all night and reduced the building to a shell. Seventy-two people lost their lives, making the Grenfell Tower fire the United Kingdom’s deadliest disaster since World War II. In this episode, we examine the events that led up to the Grenfell Tower fire and learn how the community has responded through the voices of survivors, their families, and others who were impacted. 

 

Barbara Bernstein’s story of several communities in the Pacific Northwest of the United States who are fighting mammoth fracked gas projects that would turn this green region into a fracked-gas export hub. For years, Bernstein has reported for Making Contact on David versus Goliath battles against oil and gas corporations, and the fight for a clean environment. Today you’ll hear part one of Bernstein’s project, Holding The Thin Green Line as we bring you, The World’s Largest Methanol Refinery.

Regardless of race, gender, or political affiliation, Americans in 2020 bought guns; many, for the first time. In this show, we hear from gun and mental health communities on last year’s panic buying, and what they are doing to prevent gun violence and suicides in the wake of surging national gun sales. 

As reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate, missing and murdered indigenous women and girls continue to face an unequal system of justice. In this show we’ll hear from indigenous women scholars and activists on what justice means for MMIWG2.

Our radio adaptation of the film Symbols of Resistance: A Tribute to the Martyrs of the Chican@ Movement, offers a reflection on the untold stories of the Chicano Movement with a focus on Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Produced by Freedom Archives, the film delves into issues of cultural identity, student activism; land rights and social justice, in the face of police oppression.  

Our radio adaptation of the film Symbols of Resistance: A Tribute to the Martyrs of the Chicano Movement, offers a reflection on the untold stories of the Chicano Movement with a focus on Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Produced by Freedom Archives, the film delves into issues of cultural identity, student activism; land rights and social justice, in the face of police oppression.  

Minneapolis, MN - May 25 marks the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Floyd's death - captured on video that showed Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes - sparked a global uprising in defense of Black lives and against police brutality. But amid the coverage of protests in the wake of Floyd's death, media attention rarely focused on the ways communities impacted by police violence were organizing to keep each other safe, in Minneapolis and beyond.

On today's program we honor the life and legacy of civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs through the lens of the documentary film, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. Produced and directed by Grace Lee.

 

We bring you one little girl’s experience in a neighborhood with high asthma rates and other health challenges. We also look at one part of Southern California that is bombarded with pollutants from oil refineries, a trucking thoroughfare, and one of the world’s largest ocean ports.

On today's program we honor Bayard Rustin, one of the most central figures in the African American struggle for Civil Rights and Freedom. Rustin was a pacifist, homosexual and practitioner of nonviolence who dedicated his life to racial equality, economic justice and ending warfare. 

It's been a year since the call to "Defund the Police" rang out through the George Floyd Protests. The idea isn't new - redistributing police funds into community projects that better support healthy communities -but, it's never been as popular and forceful. We take a look at some of the gains organizers have made over the past year and, we talk about the challenges

Three years after Hurricane Maria hit, Puerto Ricans are still reeling from its effects and aftereffects. We bring you a Haymarket Books talk by Marisol LeBrón, Yarimar Bonilla, and Molly Crabapple, on a collection of essays called “Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm” which discusses the legacy of Maria, and also community organizing in the face of government abandonment. This piece includes clips from the Short Film : "Aftershocks of Disaster," directed by Juan C. Dávila, and produced by Yarimar Bonilla.

Domestic abuse affects everyone it touches—intimate partners, children, and elders. COVID-19 created new problems for victims of domestic violence and made some worse. This show looks at the challenges to survivors and their advocates posed by the pandemic and examines a landmark piece of legislation in the UK that could change the way countries there handle domestic abuse cases.

This week on Making Contact, we look at so-called quality of life laws that criminalize unhoused individuals and entangles them in a cycle of poverty and incarceration—and how advocacy groups are breaking the cycle.

Water is critical to maintaining the balance of life. Some corporations claim ownership of fresh water sources to bottle and sell for profit. Others use water as a tool to extract oil and gas. In this encore edition, we'll hear from communities fighting to keep water bottling companies out of rural Oregon, and to protect water from oil and gas contamination in New Mexico.

Amid national outrage over the police killing of George Floyd in May of 2020, and other police-shootings of Black people, the movement to "defund the police" became a rallying cry to reimagine our approach to public safety. In this show, we'll hear from scholars about how we can build a global movement for abolition.

We take a look at the ongoing rise in hate incidents against Asians in the U.S., a long-running history of anti-Asian racism, and a new push by Asian Americans — especially in underserved communities — to expose and overcome this ugly side of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode (the first of a three-part series by Self Evident), we hear the stories of these two Asian Americans on the frontlines of anti-Asian hate. Then, with a little help from researcher and activist Melissa Borja, we unpack the impact of these hate incidents and how Asian Americans are responding to them across the country.

As reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate, missing and murdered indigenous women and girls continue to face an unequal system of justice. In this show we’ll hear from indigenous women scholars and activists on what justice means for MMIWG2.

Women Rising Radio re-visits the 2020 election year, to assess the outcomes and talk with those who made those outcomes happen, the grassroots election protection and GOTV activists.  This is Part 2 of Women Rising Radio’s two part programming on “Election Protection Advocates”. (Part Two - #39 is Part One)

 

In a two-part series, we look at how COVID-19 has torn through prisons and how organizers are trying to push state and local governments to release inmates in order to contain the spread of the pandemic. For Part 2, we talk about why vaccines aren’t an effective solution to ending COVID in prisons, and we also look at how re-entry has become harder during the pandemic. Then we head to a South Florida jail to learn why activists want to end pre-trial detention.

In a two-part series, we look at how COVID-19 has torn through prisons and how organizers are trying to push state and local governments to release inmates in order to contain the spread of the pandemic. In part one, we focus on California. We take a look at why a prison, like San Quentin, is such a perfect environment for infectious diseases, especially an airborne one like COVID-19, how we might safely release large amounts of inmates across the prison system, and what we’ve learned from past release programs like realignment.

This week we look at transgender activism and the call for inclusion in the movement for Black lives. We'll also meet Trans activists in Louisiana who have been organizing against a state law that has been used to target trans women.