Bring It On! – WFHB

In today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell talk about the history of black women in the military. From the Revolutionary War to present-day conflicts, women have proudly served in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard as nurses, pilots, engineers, soldiers and other specialties. During World War I, about 35,000 women officially served as nurses and support staff. Nonetheless, many black women also broke barriers while serving in the U.S. Military. These women worked on the front lines or provided support to U.S. soldiers and civilian employees.

Carrying on with this fine tradition of service are two special women of color whom we have the pleasure of speaking with this evening. They are Dr. Alfreda R. Carmichael, who enlisted in the United States Air Force and was a Contract Specialist. While in the military, she deployed to multiple locations, including Iraq’s combat deployment. Dr. Carmichael served as the First Female President of Montford Point Marine Association Chapter 10. She is currently the National Treasurer and National Scholarship Director for National Montford Point Marine Association.

Joining her is Takishia Smiley, who joined the United States Marine Corps, and served 21 years and 5 months as a CWO-3 Supply Operations Professional in automated supply systems and logistic initiatives. She has over 26 years of experience in Supply Chain Management and Distribution Information Management. She is currently the Director at the National Museum of the Montford Point Marine.

Credits:

On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell spend the hour with LaToya Williams, a wealth management advisor at Old National Bank. She serves her clients by helping them reach and exceed their financial goals. She is dedicated to understanding the unique needs of her clients and developing personalized strategies that focus on their big picture goals and values rather than a one size fits all approach.

From understanding how important a credit score is to learning strategies to improve and correct inaccuracies in your score, African Americans must learn how to take care of their financial future! To do so, we have invited a wealth management advisor, LaToya Williams, to join us and advise us on the basics of short and long-term financial planning.

Credits:

On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell, discuss the results of the recent Bloomington primaries in the context of the upcoming November General Elections with Ruben Marte and campaign managers William Hosea and Nicole Brown.

The results of the Bloomington Primaries are in. As for black candidates vying for nominations, here are the results:

Credits:

On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell, spend the hour with Ashley Pirani, who is a candidate for County Council District #3. In February, leaders from Monroe County’s Black community discussed the possibility of reparations for historic racial injustices during the annual State of the Black Community Address.

The Bloomington Black Strategic Alliance and Monroe County Black Democratic Caucus held the fifth annual event over Zoom. Members of the  caucus’s Reparations Committee spent the fall of 2021 researching the county’s history of racial injustices and presented some of their findings during the event.

IU professor Valerie Grim, Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Indiana University Department of African American and African Diaspora  Studies, shared that while the research was in its preliminary stages, the February discussion was intend to initiate a dialogue concerning whether  there are experiences and encounters in Bloomington and Monroe County that meet a reparation standard.

According to committee member Ashley Pirani, just 1 percent of Bloomington’s Black population owns a home. She said areas of Bloomington that had racially restrictive covenants have average home values well over the city average, while neighborhoods with historically higher populations of Black residents have houses that usually sell below city average. As for what reparations would look like, the committee hadn’t gotten that far.

Ashley Pirani, who is a candidate for County Council District #3, discusses what this all means in more detail.

Credits:

Today’s show is a rebroadcast from March 29, 2021.

On tonight’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts William Hosea and Liz Mitchell are joined by Alderwoman Rue Simmons of the City of Evanston to discuss the city’s decision to offer reparations to its Black residents.

On March 22, 2021, the City Council of Evanston, Illinois voted 8-1 to distribute $400,000 to eligible Black households. The reparations are for the effects of years of discriminatory housing practices and will be distributed in the form of up to $25,000 per household for repairs and home down payments.

The discussion about paying reparations to Black Americans for years of sustained racist oppression has gained new life during the recent calls for social justice. Evanston is planning to use 3% of marijuana sales taxes to fund reparations. Other cities, like Amherst, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Asheville, North Carolina; Iowa City, Iowa; and Burlington, Vermont, have begun establishing committees to study how to properly provide compensation.

Special Feature – Dark Past, Bright Future

Credits:

Today’s show is a rebroadcast from March 29, 2021.

On tonight’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts William Hosea and Liz Mitchell are joined by Alderwoman Rue Simmons of the City of Evanston to discuss the city’s decision to offer reparations to its Black residents.

On March 22, 2021, the City Council of Evanston, Illinois voted 8-1 to distribute $400,000 to eligible Black households. The reparations are for the effects of years of discriminatory housing practices and will be distributed in the form of up to $25,000 per household for repairs and home down payments.

The discussion about paying reparations to Black Americans for years of sustained racist oppression has gained new life during the recent calls for social justice. Evanston is planning to use 3% of marijuana sales taxes to fund reparations. Other cities, like Amherst, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Asheville, North Carolina; Iowa City, Iowa; and Burlington, Vermont, have begun establishing committees to study how to properly provide compensation.

Special Feature – Dark Past, Bright Future

Credits:

On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell, spend the hour with Aziz Lisa. She is a singer described as saucy, smooth, sensual and most of all empowering.

Aliza Lisa embodies a musical style that is a unique blend of R&B, Soul and Jazz. Her vocals are similar to Jill Scott, Chaka Khan and Anita Baker. In a short period of time, she has made a name for herself sharing the stage with some of the most notable names in the industry, performing background vocals for Barbra Streisand (choral ensemble) and El Debarge. She has opened in concert for the legendary Nancy Wilson, Erykah Badu, Eric Benet, Mint Condition, Amel Larrieux, Musiq Soulchild, Kindred Family Soul and more.

Her music is refreshing with lyrics that are uplifting! Her music has received airplay on Chicago radio and iHeart radio. Her songs ‘Resilient’, Sunrise’ and ‘Know Your Worth’ are accompanied by music videos on YouTube.

Credits:

This is a rebroadcast from April 5, 2021:

In today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts Clarence Boone and William Hosea tackle the little covered topic of Black people in Nazi concentration camps. During the Nazi era and the Second World War, many Black German citizens were persecuted, deported, and ultimately killed by the Nazis as they did not fit the ideology of the ‘Aryan master race’.

When the Nuremberg Laws were introduced in 1935, they originally only applied to Jewish people. However, they were soon extended to include Black people. Black people and those of mixed heritage were subjected to forced sterilization from 1937, after which they had to sign agreements that they would not marry or have sexual intercourse with those of German blood.

Unlike Jewish people, disabled people, and people identified as “gypsies”, Black people were not systematically targeted for mass killing. Nevertheless, all Black people were persecuted under the Nazis, but their individual experiences differed widely. Here to educate us on Blacks in Nazi Germany are Dr. Robbie Aitken, Professor of Imperial History at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom, and Liz Mitchell, our Bring It On! producer of Dark Past, Bright Future.

Credits:

In today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Eric Love, discuss the nomination of Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since 2021, as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Joining them in this discussion are the Honorable Valeri Haughton of Circuit Court, Division II (Seat 6), and the Honorable Geoff Bradley, Monroe County Circuit Court, Division I (Seat 9).

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson received her commission as a United States Circuit Judge in June of 2021. From 2013 until 2021, she served as a United States District Judge, and until December of 2014, she also served as a Vice-Chair and Commissioner on the United States Sentencing Commission.

Prior to her four years of service on the Sentencing Commission, Judge Jackson worked for three years as Of Counsel at Morrison & Foerster LLP, with a practice that focused on criminal and civil appellate litigation in both state and federal courts, as well as cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining Morrison & Foerster LLP, Judge Jackson served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the appeals division of the Office of the Federal Public Defender in the District of Columbia.

Before that appointment, Judge Jackson worked as an Assistant Special Counsel at the Sentencing Commission and as an associate with two law firms (one specializing in white-collar criminal defense, and the other focusing on the negotiated settlement of mass-tort claims). Judge Jackson also served as a law clerk to three federal judges: Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States, Judge Bruce M. Selya of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Judge Jackson is currently a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services, as well as the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and the Council of the American Law Institute. She also currently serves on the board of Georgetown Day School and the United States Supreme Court Fellows Commission.

Judge Jackson received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1996, where she served as a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She received an A.B., magna cum laude, in Government from Harvard-Radcliffe College in 1992. (from U.S. Court of Appeals website)

Before winning the election in 2020 to Monroe County judge, Geoff Bradley (D) was a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in the Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office, a position he’s held for 14 years. He serves on the board of the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival​.

Valeri Haughton (D) was unchallenged for her seat in the 2020 election. She has served 3 terms, a total of  12 years, as a judge. Prior to her election in 2008, she was a deputy prosecutor in Monroe and Marion counties.

Credits:

On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell spend the hour with Dr. Gladys DeVane. She is an author, thespian, playwright, narrator, and co-founder of Resilience Productions.

Credits: