Making Contact

On the eve of a Presidential election being decided by a handful of swing states, we sat down with two women in Indiana to talk about what it takes to make progress in a place that is largely neglected by the national Democratic Party Machine. Dayna Colbert, Executive Director of the Hoosier Democratic Party, talks about their growing foothold, led by women. And, political podcaster Dana Black talks about how to maintain an authentic voice while working alongside the official Democratic Party.  Featuring: Dayna Colbert, Executive Director of Indiana Democratic Party Dana Black, Political podcaster and public speaker Making Contact Staff: Episode Host: Amy Gastelum Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain Music: Jahzzar, Flutter HoliznaCC0 - Whatever Learn More:  Indiana Democratic Party Indiana's Own Dana Black Hoosier Women Forward Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

Almost half of Puerto Rico's doctors have fled the island over the past decade,  leading to a lack of specialists and treatment and incredibly long wait times. And this isn't just an inconvenience. People are dying from lack of care. Why is Puerto Rico's health care system collapsing, and why are doctors fleeing the island? We take a look at its deeply dysfunctional private medical system and why attempts to fix it, and create a universal health care plan on the island, are being hindered by Puerto Rico's status as a US colony. Its massive unpayable debt, held by investors in the US, means that it cannot make its own economic decisions, even when it affects the livelihood of poor Puerto Ricans living there. But there might be a fix, getting rid of Puerto Rico's debt and rethinking its colonial relationship to the US.  Featuring: Carolina (pseudonym for privacy) Coral del Mar Murphy Marcos-  journalist. Author of an article on PR's health care crisis. Paola (pseudonym for privacy) Alberto Medina- Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora Making Contact Staff: Episode Host: Salima Hamirani Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain Music credits: Daniel Birch - Indigo Strokes Axletree - Goldfinch- Flight to the North Mindseye - Spores Soft and Furious - So What Learn More: Boricuas Unidos en la Diaspora The Nation Magazine Puerto Rico’s Unnatural Disaster Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

On this week's episode, we speak with Dr. Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar about his latest book, America's Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy.  America’s Black Capital chronicles how a center of Black excellence emerged amid virulent expressions of white nationalism, as African Americans pushed back against Confederate ideology to create an extraordinary locus of achievement. We examine the methods in which Black Atlanteans pushed for social, economic, and political upliftment through the development of Black collegiate systems, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement.   Dr. Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar the author of America's Black Capital: How African Americans Remade Atlanta in the Shadow of the Confederacy.   **Episode Credits:** Host: Anita Johnson Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman  Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain **Music:** Andy G. Cohen - Our Young Guts  Blue Dot Sessions– Paving Stones Learn More:  Dr. Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar -  Atlanta Race Massacre -  Atlanta Race Massacre -  Hoke Smith -  Clarke Howell -  Tom Watson -   America's Black Capital -    Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.

It's been one year since October 7th, 2023 and the start of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza. On today's show, we hear from journalist Rami Almeghari and other Palestinians about their experiences living through the war. Then, we dive into a conversation with Norman Solomon, author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine, about what mainstream coverage of the war is leaving out. Featuring: Rami Almeghari, Palestinian journalist in Gaza Norman Solomon, activist and author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine Tarneem, Ahmad and Hamza Jaber, Palestinian siblings from Gaza  Special thanks to Mohammed Naeem Imad, for reporting and fact-checking support Audio excerpts featuring Tarneem, Ahmad and Hamza Jaber are from the series Great Love: The Gaza Monologues from ASHTAR Theatre Revisited on The Heart podcast, created and hosted by Kaitlin Prest Making Contact Staff: Episode Host: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain   Music credits: "Documentary Piano Ambient" by Bohdan Kuzmin (BoDleasons) via [Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/users/28047609/) Learn More:  The Jaber siblings featured in this episode are fundraising for their living costs and to continue their education in Cairo. You can find their campaign here: Journalist Rami Almeghari is currently in Gaza, and he is fundraising to support his family during this time. You can find his campaign here:   ASHTAR Theatre, which created The Gaza Monologues:    [Great Love: The Gaza Monologues from ASHTAR Theatre Revisited](https://play.prx.org/listen?ge=prx_25_025f9e65-6631-4120-a9e0-a20b80edc5aa&uf=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.theheartradio.org%2FTheHeartRadio) _on _The Heart_ podcast Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program contextualizing the narratives that shape our culture. On the web at www.focmedia.org.

We catch up with journalist and IPV survivor Natalie Pattillo to talk about the folks fighting for justice for criminalized survivors of intimate partner violence. Listen to find out the story behind Oklahoma activists that led the state to adopt a new law based on NY's Domestic Violence Survivor's Justice Act, and how you can get involved. And finally, Standford's Regilla Project just published a groundbreaking study revealing the scope of the IPV to prison pipeline.    **Natalie Pattillo,** journalist and co-producer of the film And So I Stayed **Alexandra Bailey,** Senior Campaign Strategist for The Sentencing Project **Amanda Ross**, activist and niece of April Wilkens, the first person to use the Oklahoma Survivors' Act to apply for a retroactive sentence reduction **Debbie Mukamal,** Executive Director of Stanford Criminal Justice Center **Andrea Cimino,** Director of Research for the Regilla Project   **Making Contact Staff:** Episode Host: Amy Gastelum Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/)  Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain   **Music Credits:** _Podington Bear_ Tracks: _Arboles, Delphi, Poise _ From the album _Encouraging_ Licensed under [CC BY-NC](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) and available online here: Learn More:  **The Sentencing Project ** **Free April Wilkens ** **We Stand With Nikki** **The Regilla Project ** **And So I Stayed Film ** **Survivor's Justice Project** **Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice **  

In this week's show, we take a look at the health, environmental and financial costs of coal that fall to people living nearby. With the help of our partner podcast Crosswinds, we meet three impacted communities along a railroad connecting coal mines in West Virginia to ports on the East Coast. And we'll hear how that rail infrastructure was built on the forced labor of incarcerated African Americans. Featuring: Adrian Wood, multimedia producer with the Repair Lab at the University of Virginia and producer of Crosswinds    Making Contact Staff: Episode Host: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman  Digital Marketing Manager: Lissa Deonarain Music credits: "A Documentary" by AKTASOK (Valentin Iakovlev) via Pixabay Credits for Crosswinds Episode 3: "Cost" Written, produced mixed and mastered by Adrian Wood Editing by Oluwakemi Aladesuyi of Rough Cut Collective Scoring by Torrin Purkett and Adrian Wood Produced through the Repair Lab at the University of Virginia  Learn More: Making Contact homepage: www.focmedia.org Listen to the entire Crosswinds series: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ey0DQiOzuvJehEyCjGJYv Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-repair-lab/id1633699454 Coal Dust Kills: www.coaldustkills.com The Repair Lab: repairlab.virginia.edu 

On today’s Making Contact, our friends from the podcast, Kerning Cultures, bring us “Black Panthers in Algeria.” It’s the story of when Elaine Mokhtefi landed in newly independent Algeria in the early 1960s and quickly found herself at the center of a special period in the country’s history, at a time when Algiers welcomed liberation groups from across the world – earning a reputation as the “Mecca of revolution." In this unlikely setting, Elaine moved in the same circles as world famous radicals, ragtag political parties, spies and military leaders. And she became an unlikely sidekick to one of the most iconic liberation groups of our time, just as it was beginning to fall apart.  Credits - Kerning Cultures: This episode was produced by Deena Sabry and Alex Atack, and edited by Dana Ballout. Fact checking by Eman Alsharif, sound design by Mohamad Khreizat, Paul Alouf and Alex Atack. Our team also includes Zeina Dowidar, Nadeen Shaker and Finbar Anderson. Making Contact Team: Host: Anita Johnson Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonrain  Learn More:  Algiers: Third World Capital [https://bookshop.org/a/84225/9781788730006] Revolution or Death: The Life of Eldridge Cleaver [https://bookshop.org/a/84225/9781613739112] Kerning Cultures [https://kerningcultures.com/]

The attacks on Imane Khelif's gender at this year's 2024 Paris Olympics is not new. In fact, the focus on women's appearance and gender expression goes back to the founding of the Olympics, the minute women entered elite sports. We talk to Rose Eveleth, host and producer of the podcast Tested about the history of sex testing in the Olympics and why it existed in the first place, why there's no easy way to classify the natural, biological variation that exists in human beings and why we might want to consider new ways of organizing athletes that is less sexist, racist and more accepting of genders outside of a simple binary.   Featuring: Rose Eveleth, host and producer of the podcast Tested  Episode Credits: Host: Salima Hamirani Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Music: Alpha Hydrae - Friends Soft and Furious - So What Axletree- The Silent Grove Blear Moon - Further Discovery Crowander - Opening Lines.   Learn More:  Tested on NPR Tested on CBC

The last few years have seen a wave of labor organizing as it becomes more and more clear to workers that what they do is not expendable, but actually the heart of every business. From walkouts to unionization, workers from Starbucks to Amazon to your local coffee shop have come together to build and exercise their power. In this episode we explore the issues that led people to organize their workplaces, the ins and outs and ups and downs of the process, and the backlash. On the forefront of the next labor revolution, we visit a coffee shop in Maine called Little Dog whose staff starts a union. Then we talk to Robert Chlala from the UCLA Labor Center about the rise in unionization efforts among service workers and the social and cultural ethos in a post lockdown country that have led to this new wave of the labor movement.  Featuring: Robert Chlala – Assistant Professor, CSU Long Beach & Visiting Researcher at UCLA Labor Center Jessica Czarnecki, Sydney, Sophie, Kira – Workers at Little Dog Cafe  Making Contact Team: Host: Salima Hamirani Reporter: Jules Bradley Executive Director: Jina Chung Staff Producers: Anita Johnson, Lucy Kang, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum Engineer: Jeff Emtman Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Music: “Industrial Zone” by Bio Unit “Stay Quiet” by Monplaisir “Bleu” by Komiku “Leap Second” by Doctor Turtle “Which Side Are You On” by Pete Seeger Learn More: UCLA Labor Center Little Dog Employees Lawsuit Brunswick coffee shop strike ends with potential change in ownership 

We need affordable housing now! On today's episode, we look more closely at two stories that underscore the importance of affordable housing. First, we'll examine what the recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson means for unhoused people who are living on the streets and how historical disinvestment in affordable and public housing has created our current homelessness wave. Then, we'll hear about the fight to legalize and preserve one important type of affordable housing units in New York City – basement apartments – and how the escalating impacts of climate change are making that campaign more urgent than ever.    Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project  Annetta Seecharran, executive director of Chhaya Community Development Corporation    Making Contact Staff: Episode Host: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Editor: Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong Engineer: Jeff Emtman Music credit: Pending (Relaxing Acoustic Ballad Nylon Guitar) by William_King via Pixabay Credits for "Invisible Homeless" by the Queens Memory Podcast Episode produced by Stella Gu in conjunction with Melody Cao, Anna Williams, and Natalie Milbrodt Podcast hosted by J. Faye Yuan Mixing and editing by Cory Choy Music composed by Elias Ravin Voiceover work by Xia Liangjie and Chen Xiaojun    Learn More:  Making Contact homepage: www.focmedia.org Western Regional Advocacy Project: https://wraphome.org/ Queens Memory Podcast: www.queensmemory.org Chhaya CDC: BASE Campaign: https://chhayacdc.org/campaigns/base-campaign/