In this episode of The Persistence, Angélica Cordero traces how some of the most consequential changes in history didn’t begin with explosions or speeches, but with stillness. Opening with a personal memory of watching Jurassic Park alongside her grandmother (who always knew exactly when someone was about to make a terrible decision), Cordero draws a sharp line between moments we recognize as obviously reckless and the real-life systems we’re taught to trust long past their breaking point. From Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy of non-cooperation to the Greensboro sit-ins, the rise of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Freedom Rides, and the student-led confrontations that defined the early 1960s, this episode explores how quietly refusing to play along can expose the lie underneath power.

With wit, cultural fluency, and a clear-eyed look at how systems react when compliance runs out, The Persistence invites listeners to reflect on the moment their own script cracked and what happens when stillness turns into momentum.

This episode was written by and produced by Angélica Cordero, with a little help from ChatGPT.

Our theme song is Don’t Kid Yourself Baby by Fold, used with their blessings. Podcast artwork for The Persistence features Mexican-American activist Jovita Idar and was created by Tamra Collins of Sunroot Studio.

Resources For Fellow Wascally Wabbits

Books

America Dreaming by Laban Carrick Hill

Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez

Persistence: Evelyn Butts and the African American Quest for Full Citizenship and Self-Determination by Kenneth Cooper Alexander

Links

“Ella Baker,” (People, SNCC Digital Gateway, Duke University Libraries)

“Founding of SNCC,” (Events, SNCC Digital Gateway, Duke University Libraries)

“Freedom Riders” in 1961: A Newborn Library and the World Beyond, (Olin @ 50: Inspiration Since 1961, Cornell University Library)

“Freedom Rides,” (Civil Rights Digital Library, University of Georgia Libraries)

“Jane Stembridge,” (Events, SNCC Digital Gateway, Duke University Libraries)

“The Civil Rights Movement and Wesleyan Freedom Riders,” (2008 Issue 3, Historical Row, UpFront, Wesleyan University Magazine, Sep 20, 2008)

The Creative Act: Marcel Duchamp’s 1957 Classic, Read by the Artist Himself by Maria Popova, (The Marginalian, Aug 23, 2012)

Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights, (Historic Speeches, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

“Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in remembered by those who witnessed history,” (Museum Events, International Civil Rights Museum and Center, Aug 13, 2022)

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