Making Contact

As people respond in the wake of actions in Charlottesville,VA, perpetrated by white supremacists and Nazi's emboldened by President Trump, we interview Alicia Garza, one of the founding leaders of Black Lives Matter. You'll hear Garza's specific definitions of power and white supremacy, as she contextualizes this moment, and you'll learn about concrete actions that people, especially white people can take to move forward and organize. Special thanks to Kate Raphael & Women's Magazine on KPFA.

On this edition of Making Contact we present, The Struggle Inside: The Murder of George Jackson, a program about the modern anti-prison movement.

In this edition of Making Contact, we look at two major changes to statewide curriculum in California, and where schools nationwide may be headed under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

On this edition of Making Contact, we'll meet people challenging polluters in their own backyard. Not to push hazardous industries into another neighborhood. Instead they're developing visionary solutions for a better life for all and for the future of the planet. From urban to rural communities, we'll learn about indigenous-led efforts to protect public health and the environment for future generations.

On this edition of Making Contact, we'll explore the aftermath of the Ghost Ship fire and the battle to preserve live/work spaces, and then we look at the San Pablo fire in Oakland California that displaced at least a hundred residents…many of whom are now living on the streets in tent encampments. Special Thanks to KALW and Jeremy Dalmas.

On this edition of Making Contact we go from Cape Town, South Africa to Los Angeles and Oakland, California— three cities grappling with evictions, displacement, and homelessness.

On this edition, we hear from Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Taylor most recently wrote, From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation. We'll be sharing a talk with Dr. Taylor's insights on Black Liberation as framed through this most recent election.

It was the 1960s – and throughout the United States, opposition to the War in Vietnam was growing. The Draft forced young men to make a choice about their own participation in the war. And many chose to resist. On today's Making Contact we look back at the resistance to the Draft to the War in Vietnam. What form did that resistance take? And what lessons are people bringing to building resistance to war and empire among soldiers today, in the absence of an official draft?

On this edition of Making Contact, we present Dr. Ibram X. Kendi discussing his latest book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Stamped offers a deeply researched, provocative narrative that is a comprehensive history of anti-Black racist ideas—their origins, and how they became founding principles in our nation's institutions.

On this edition of Making Contact, we present the final installment in a two-part series on the pressure to transform a region of iconic landscapes and environmental stewardship into a global center for shipping fossil fuels.