At Liberty

You may recognize W. Kamau Bell from his multi-Emmy award-winning docuseries United Shades of America, from his Substack Who’s With Me, or from his commercials for the ACLU. If you're a longtime supporter of the ACLU, you'll know Bell has worked with us for more than a decade as our Artist Ambassador for Racial Justice. We're excited to have him as our interim host for our At Liberty podcast, where he will host conversations with leaders, legal experts, artists, and storytellers dedicated to the fight for civil rights and civil liberties.

This episode is a conversation taped live earlier this month on a stop of ACLU’s Know Your Rights Bus Tour. On our tour, we hit the road with artists, influencers, advocates, and community members to host events in six cities to ensure voters know their rights and have a plan to vote. At our stop in Detroit, host W. Kamau Bell sat down with two prominent voices from Michigan's activist community: Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, and filmmaker Razi Jafri. Together, they explore the complexities of activism, democracy, and representation in Michigan — a state at the crossroads of pivotal social and political change.

This episode delves into the power of coalition building among Black, Arab, and Muslim American communities. Loren and Razi share their insights on being in a battleground state, how communities can leverage grassroots activism to impact national conversations, and the unique challenges and opportunities of engaging underrepresented voters.

You may recognize W. Kamau Bell from his multi-Emmy award-winning docuseries United Shades of America, from his Substack Who’s With Me, or from his commercials for the ACLU. Bell has worked with us for more than a decade as our Artist Ambassador for Racial Justice. We are fortunate to welcome him as our interim host for our At Liberty podcast over the next few months where he will host conversations with leaders, legal experts, artists and storytellers dedicated to the fight for civil rights and civil liberties.

Our first podcast is a conversation taped live earlier this month on a stop of ACLU’s Know Your Rights Bus Tour. On our tour, we hit the road with artists, influencers, advocates and community members to host events in six cities to ensure voters know their rights and have a plan to vote. At our stop in Philly, Bell sat down with Mike Lee, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

Lee is Philly born and raised. He has a long history of championing criminal justice reform and challenging discrimination against marginalized communities in Pennsylvania. He knows a thing or two about Philly, and shared how it informs his legal career. We hope you enjoy!

This Friday, July 26, the summer Olympics will kick off in Paris, France. From the athletes and storylines, to dreams being made and records being broken, the spirit of the Olympics brings out the inner patriot in many of us. To commemorate this year’s Games, we have a special treat for you. Today, we are joined by a 5-time Olympic gold medalist, Sue Bird.

Sue Bird is widely known as one of the greatest basketball players in modern history, with her name often followed or preceded by the word “Legend.” A champion from a young age, Sue was a two time NCAA champion playing for the University of Connecticut. She then went on to the WNBA where she was named a 4-time champion and 13-time all star. Need we remind you that she also has five Olympic Gold medals? Sue retired in 2022 after 21 years in the WNBA. Now, she spends her time working to advance gender equity in women’s sports, be it through her media and commerce company, Togxther, A Touch More, her production company with her partner, soccer-phenom Megan Rapinoe, and her partial ownership of the Seattle Storm (her former WNBA team). A documentary about her career, "Sue Bird: In the Clutch," recently premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and is available now on Netflix. In a very exciting time for women’s sports, Sue joins us to break down all the action.

How much do you know about Araminta Ross?

Her face is slated to start appearing on the twenty dollar bill by 2030. She’s the first American woman in history to lead a military raid that emancipated over 700 people, and one of the most important abolitionists in history. You might know her by another name: Harriet Tubman. But when it comes to Harriet Tubman’s legacy, an important part of her lived experience is often overlooked: her disability. With July being disability pride month, we wanted to celebrate Harriet Tubman as an icon and learn more about her identity from someone who finds her “often rightly celebrated, but seldom understood.”

That someone is Tiya Miles, a National Book Award-winner and the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University. In her latest book, "Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People," Tiya writes about the somewhat unsung aspects of Harriet Tubman’s life—her intertwined relationship with God and nature—which guided her activism and connected her to a collective of other women of her time. Through “Nightflyer,” Tiya proves that even when it comes to the most heralded historical figures, there’s always more to say. And today, she joins us to tell us all about her new book, connect past and present, and offer lessons from Harriet’s life that can help us build a future of collective liberation.

Another Supreme Court term has come to a close. This year, the court delivered major decisions on reproductive freedom, voting rights, free speech, this women's rights, gun rights, and presidential immunity, among other decisions. The ACLU was involved in cases throughout the term, and as far as wins and losses, we're coming out somewhere in the middle.

Here to discuss it all and help us reconcile this term's decisions is returning favorite David Cole, the ACLU's national legal director.

On June 4, the Biden administration signed an executive order that will severely restrict people's legal right to seek asylum, no matter how strong their claims. Among the measures announced, the administration will effectively shut off asylum for the overwhelming majority of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border once the average number of encounters reaches 2,500 between ports of entry, a threshold which has already been met. 

The order is the most restrictive border policy instituted by President Biden and echoes an effort in 2018 by former President Trump to cut off migration, which the ACLU and other immigrant rights advocates successfully challenged. 

Under any president, lawful, harmful policies that eliminate crucial lifelines for people seeking safety will be taken to task. Joining us to discuss Biden's executive order and our lawsuit to fight against it are Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrant Rights Project and Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago.

On this episode, we’re going back into our archives to share an episode that unfortunately still has deep resonance today. Last year, we asked you what a year without Roe has been like in your lives and you responded in droves.

Today, with abortion still banned in 14 states with little exception, life looks a lot like it did last year at this time. So we’re running it back today and sharing "A Year Without Roe" again, to remind us all of what’s at stake as abortion is on the ballot this November.

As we celebrate Pride Month and approach summer, one thing is on our minds: queer pop icons. From the fast fame of Chappell Roan and Reneé Rapp to praise for hitmakers like Billie Eilish and Victoria Monét, it feels like we’re in a moment for unapologetically queer music in the mainstream. This is especially true for queer femme artists, who are reaching pop stardom. To dive into this moment and see if others are noticing it too, we called up some fellow music-lovers who have been tuned in.

In this episode, you’ll hear from the ACLU's Stefan Smith, head of digital engagement, and Gillian Branstetter, communications strategist for the LGBTQ Project. Later, we’re joined by music journalist Sasha Geffen, author of the book "Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary." Together, we discuss what we're noticing in the world of queer music, our favorite artists, and the rich history that led us to where we are today.

To listen to the artists discussed in this episode and others we've been loving, check out our playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2PsXHQfSwtfxP2a3fiQ7RF?si=2daac59c447d4d3d

“There is no shortage of voices demanding everyone pay attention to the violence trans women suffer. But one frighteningly basic question seems never to be answered: why does it happen? If men are not inherently evil and trans women do not intrinsically invite reprisal—which would make violence unstoppable—then the psychology of that violence had to arise at a certain place and time. The trans panic had to be invented.”

This is the description for historian and gender scholar Dr. Jules Gill-Peterson’s new book, “The Short History of Trans Misogyny,” a work that seeks to answer why trans misogyny is such a ubiquitous reality. Without this understanding, Jules says, we can never move beyond awareness into liberation for trans femme people.

At a time when legislative attacks on trans people are at an all-time high and a pernicious focus on their lives and healthcare dominates public discourse, this question and exploration provides an important path forward. Today, Jules, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and author of the 2018 book, “Histories of the Transgender Child,” joins us to discuss.

What would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls? That is the question at the center of "Girls State," a new Apple TV+ documentary and the nationwide civic leadership program that it's named after. As participants, high school students are competitively selected into an immersive experiment in which they must build a mock government from the ground up, complete with municipal roles, branches, a governor, and a Supreme Court.

The film takes us inside Missouri Girls State 2022, where hundreds of girls from across the state gather at Lindenwood University to reimagine what it means to govern and devise a better democracy. As citizens of Girls State, these young women take on fierce elections and the toughest political questions of today, on top of the trials of teenage-hood. Amid political polarization and set on the heels of the leaked Dobbs draft decision, the girls of "Girls State" challenge themselves and each other as they build pathways to the future that they want and make plans for how they're going to run it.

Joining us today to talk about their Girls State experience and their plans to change the world are some of the girls from the film, Cecilia Bartin, Nisha Murali, and Tochi Ihekona.