Her Story Speaks

Jeannie Gainsburg is an award-winning educational trainer and consultant in the field of LGBTQ+ inclusion and effective allyship. Formerly the Education Director at the Out Alliance in Rochester, N.Y., she is now the founder of Savvy Ally Action and author of the book, The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate. Jeannie has a BA in psychology from Brown University and an MA in social work and social research from Bryn Mawr College. She was under the impression that a citation was the result of driving too fast until January of 2019, when she received one from the New York State Assembly for Distinguished Educational & Human Rights Services for her work in promoting LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion. Her encouraging, passionate, and warm-hearted approach will surely jumpstart even the most tentative ally. Visit her website and download free ally goodies at: www.savvyallyaction.com.

For this bonus episode I am joined by past guest, Mariah Humphries. Mariah is a Mvskoke Nation citizen, writer and educator. Through her experience navigating the tension between Native and White American culture, she brings Native awareness to non-Native spaces.  With over 20 years of vocational ministry service, she is focused on theology, racial literacy and reconciliation within the American Church. In this episode we discuss the often overlooked and under reported topic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women. Mariah shares real stories of the women behind the statistics as well as reasons why Indigenous women and (girls +) are murdered ten times higher than all other ethnicities, yet this number often goes under reported.

Idelette McVicker describes herself as a creative soul and midwife for liberation. She was born and raised in South Africa during the apartheid era and spent half of her life living in a system created to benefit her white body. When she was 16, she read a book that cracked open her all-white world and shattered so many of her belief systems. Since then she spent her life leaving the construct of whiteness, unlearning so much of what she had internalized to learn a new way of being human. In this conversation we talk about Idelette's journey out of whiteness that she shares in her new book: *RECOVERING RACISTS  Dismantling White Supremacy and Reclaiming Our Humanity.”  Please note, 90% of proceeds from this book go directly to BIPOC communities who have been harmed by racist systems of oppression.

Leading Christian activist, author and founder of the consulting group Freedom Road, Lisa Sharon Harper has spent three decades researching ten generations of her family history through DNA research, oral histories, interviews and genealogy. In her new book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World—and How to Repair It All, Harper draws on her lifelong journey to know her family’s history to recover the beauty of her heritage, expose the brokenness that race has wrought in America, and cast a vision for collective repair.

In this episode Tasha Hunter shares her journey with forgiveness, infertility, and mothering her bonus daughter. Tasha Hunter, MSW, LCSW is  Black, queer Internal Family Systems therapist and consultant. She is the owner of Ascension Growth Center, PLLC located in North Carolina. As a United States Air Force veteran, she primarily serves military, Black/BIPOC women, and LGBTQ+.  She is the author of her memoir, "What Children Remember" and host of the podcast " When We Speak". She is passionate about speaking about adult child trauma, suicide, and collective healing and liberation.

Did you know that women in this country continue to experience discrimination and disadvantage in nearly every sphere of life? A 2018 survey named the United States among the ten most dangerous countries in the world for women and the World Economic Forum recently ranked the United States 53rd out of 153 nations for gender parity. In this episode we talk about the  Equal Rights Amendment and who it is a crucial step toward greater gender justice in the U.S and ending gender discrimination in this country. Human rights lawyer and faith leader, Allyson McKinney, and author and Speaker Meghan Tschanz  talk about the history of the ERA, why it has still not been published as the 28th amendment, why it is desperately needed, some of the myths and opposition to it  and what you can do to help ratify the ERA to the U.S. Constitution

In part four  of this bonus podcast series, paying tribute to Black motherhood, I am joined by Marcie Alvis-Walker, Cha Sears-Barefield, Patricia A. Taylor, Dr. Quintrilla Ard and Nya Abernathy as they discuss the theme “In Our Mother’s Gardens.” In this episode the women share their experiences of being multidimensional Black women and how they have fought for dignity in a world that has tried to take it. They share personal stories from their own mothering journeys and talk about some of the hardest chapters where their own lives have been jeopardized . They also share about the legacy their ancestors have left for them and the soil they tend to daily to leave a bounty of dignity for the children that come after them. Because Black women have a history of not getting paid for their time and work, we would like to honor each of the guests for this series and compensate them for their time. We are asking listeners to donate minimum $1 for each episode  they download and listen to in this series. Money can be given via Venmo to @herstoryspeaks and all money given in the month of February will be divided equally among the guests for this series.

In part three of this bonus podcast series where we are paying tribute to Black motherhood, I am joined by Marcie Alvis-Walker, Patricia Taylor and Nya Abernathy as they discuss the Black Motherhood in Media. Not only do they share their own experiences growing up and the Black mothers in media that influenced them but also share their passion for having more representation of Black women and girls in media today. They talk about raising daughters under the heavy influence of whiteness all around them and the very real struggle they face as Black mothers keeping their children’s dignity fully intact. Book bans, censorship and teaching our children more accurate history is also discussed.

Christena Cleveland Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the  Center for Justice + Renewal as well as its sister organization, Sacred Folk, which creates resources to stimulate people’s spiritual imaginations and support their journeys toward liberation. A weaver of Black liberation and the sacred feminine, Dr. Cleveland integrates psychology, theology, storytelling, and art to stimulate our spiritual imaginations. She recently completed her third full-length book, God is a Black Woman (HarperOne), which details her 400-mile walking pilgrimage across central France in search of ancient Black Madonna statues, and examines the relationship among race, gender, and cultural perceptions of the Divine.  Dr. Cleveland holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara as well as an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary. An award-winning researcher and author, Christena is a Ford Foundation Fellow who has held faculty positions at several institutions of higher education — most recently at Duke University’s Divinity School, where she led a research team investigating self-compassion as a buffer to racial stress. Though Dr. Cleveland loves scholarly inquiry, she is also a student of embodied wisdom. She recently completed the Art & Social Change intensive body wisdom training for millennial leaders, and is currently deepening her mind-body-spirit integration in a year-long life practice program for BIPOC.  A bona fide tea snob, lover of Black art, and Ólafur Arnalds superfan — Christena makes her home in Boston.

https://www.christenacleveland.com/ 

https://www.patreon.com/cscleve

IG@ christenacleveland

In this bonus podcast series we are paying tribute to Black Motherhood. For this episode I am joined by historian Lettie Gore, Marcie Alvis-Walker, and Nya Abernathy as they discuss the The Imprint of Black Mothers on our Country. The women discuss everything from our country's Founding Mothers, to Black domestics raising white children, to Black mothers shaping American Politics. (please note, some content may be triggering.)