Futures Forum

By Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures at Cornell University

Futures Forum podcast is a space for collectively dreaming, imagining, and co-creating ideas. Our guests have made significant contributions either to scholarly

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FAQs about Futures Forum:

How many episodes does Futures Forum have?

The podcast currently has 5 episodes available.

Futures Forum episodes:

June 24, 2026Organizing to Build Multiracial Democracy: a deep dive with Dorian Warren
Our guest this week is Dorian Warren, an expert on community organizing and the co-president of Community Change, a national organization that builds the power of low-income people, especially people of color, to create a multiracial democracy and a fair economy. He talks us through the difference between mobilizing and organizing, and explains why building relationships are the foundation to collective power. We also discuss how narratives and storytelling can be critical tools for supporting and defending change, and why children may help adults understand the changing foundations of what is “normal.”

Links to further reading from our discussion
Our conversation dives deeply into organizing: what it means, how to do it effectively, and examples of successful organizing such as political education on noncooperation tactics, jury nullification and refusal to indict, universal childcare in New Mexico, and permanent guaranteed income in Cook County, IL.
Children are often quite aware of what’s happening in the country, from seeing National Guard on the streets to being worried about the right to vote, and even six-year-olds can begin to show bias. Neil wrote about what happens when children learn about racism, and in Chicago, Matt Nelson studied how children respond to different types of taught history.
Storytelling and narratives are critical to how we make meaning. We discuss how the Works Progress Administration hired artists and cultural workers of all kinds to tell the story of the American people.
Erasure of stories is a common tactic in authoritarian regimes, as is stripping away rights and legal protections.
We consider the benefits of the wide-ranging career Dorian has had, including what we gain from experimenting to best serve our work and others.
This podcast was recorded at Cornell University by Juan Vazquez-Leddon and Bertrand Odom-Reed, and produced by Bertrand Odom-Reed, Multimedia Producer Consultant.
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58min
May 20, 2026Sensemaking as Solidarity: Liz Neeley on cutting through noise to meet the moment
Our guest this week is Liz Neeley, founder of Liminal, a science communication collective that focuses on sensemaking. We discuss the ways storytelling can help us make meaningful change from our research, navigating risks of speaking out, and tools for working against the strategic onslaught of information overload. Liz also guides us through planning a security party, so you can take practical steps, in community, to ensure you and your data are protected.

Links to further reading from our discussion:
You can see more of Liz Neeley’s work by visiting Liminal, subscribing to Meeting the Moment, and checking out Storymakers and Unbreaking
When Liz mentions several tools for security and resourcing, she’s thinking of resources for whistleblowers, the Researcher Support Consortium, and Expert Voices Together
Try working through these checklists at security parties
The Liminal quadrant visual can help you make choices about when to speak up and take risks
Additional resources not specifically mentioned in the podcast but which Liz refers to include Knight First Amendment Institute, American Association of University Professors (AAUP), lawyers in the public interest, FIRE Legal Network and Legal Defense Fund, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and PEN America
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51min
April 22, 2026Reading the Past to Write a Better Future: On Public Scholarship with Victor Ray
Victor Ray is one of the leading voices on race and racial justice in the United States. Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. talk with Victor about the current backlash to DEI initiatives in a conversation that connects research and personal experience to systems and power structures. Tune in to this wide-ranging episode to hear more about the current turn toward resegregation in the US, how organizations uphold structural racism, and the risks (and benefits) of doing scholarship in public.

Links to further reading from our discussion:
Throughout the conversation, we reference Victor Ray’s work on critical race theory, mental health services to veterans, anti-DEI initiatives as segregationist, and especially his theory of racialized organizations.
In our brief discussion on “mesearch,” we consider Ray’s essay on the subject and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, a seminal book on poverty and housing justice.
On resegregation, we look at policies leading to job loss and the undoing of civil rights, what is happening in the U.S. military, and attacks on DEI.
We apply lessons from the theory of racialized organizations to the Department of Justice, Equal Employment Opportunity, university DEI initiatives, and academic leadership and freedom.
On resistance, we mention No Kings protests, coordinated resistance to ICE in Minneapolis, and what James Baldwin wrote in a 1962 essay for the New York Times: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
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44min
March 25, 2026The History of Black Women at Cornell: A Conversation with Marcia Easley
This Women's History Month, Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. spoke with Marcia Easley, a long-time Ithacan and Assistant Dean for Human Resources in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. Marcia told us about the history of Black women at Cornell and students like Ruth Peyton, who could study, but not sleep, here. Marcia shares the struggles and accomplishments of Black students, the nonlinear path of inclusion and segregation, and how knowing our history can help us do better.

Links to further reading from our discussion:
We discussed Black women and human rights in February with Keisha Blain
Letters to and from Livingston Farrand, Cornell’s president from 1921–1937
In 1969, Black students at Cornell took over Willard Straight Hall
Jane Eleanor Datcher was the first known Black woman to earn an undergraduate degree from Cornell
Residency at Sage College wasn’t always offered to all
Portrait of Ruth Peyton, Class of 1931
A historian reflects on Black students as “part and apart” at Cornell
The political construction of systemic racism informs institutional decisions
Neil Lewis, Jr. researches how people make meaning in a fragmented democracy and Jamila Michener wrote a book on those consequences for democracy
Black women have been experiencing massive unemployment rates, and particularly in 2025
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34min
February 25, 2026 Without Fear: A Conversation with Keisha Blain
Keisha N. Blain, author of Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights, is a professor of Africana Studies and History at Brown University, and has been hailed as one the most innovative and influential historians of her generation.
Jamila Michener and Neil Lewis, Jr. speak with Dr. Blain, the Center's 2026 Black History Month keynote speaker, about her new book, the writing process, how past work can help us build the future, and marking pathways for future researchers.
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35min

FAQs about Futures Forum:

How many episodes does Futures Forum have?

The podcast currently has 5 episodes available.