Indigo Radio

Indigo radio has its first Appalachian State University guest host, McKinney Simpson. McKinney is a senior at App State majoring in Public Health. She spends the hour discussing the impact and proliferation of AI on campus, student thoughts, and the adverse health and environmental impacts of AI.

Indigo Boone host Anna talks with Red and Eli from High Country Mutual Aid out of Boone, NC.

High Country Mutual Aid is a grassroots community movement, based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, funded entirely by public donor support. We are an ever evolving group, comprised of folks of diverse identities and backgrounds, working to educate about the numerous ways our current systems are failing us, and utilizing collective coordination to create systems of care to meet the needs of our communities and strengthen all our relations.

Connect with them at highcountrymutualaid.org

In today’s show, Chris Lievense, high school social studies teacher in Vermont and Kelly Junno 3rd grade teacher in Western Massachusetts, and Spark faculty, share with us their insights from the 2025 Socialism conference in Chicago and how those lessons are applicable to their work as K-16 educators.

A major theme Kelly and Chris found at the conference was, how does the progressive left recapture the narrative. Fascist can’t win unless they capture education and the narratives around it that normalize injustice. How does the progressive left ask for the unimaginable. How do we ask for a better world where we don’t have prisons, where we don’t spend billions of dollars and billions of lives to have them and instead ask for what are the kinds of care we need and what are the things that we need to meet, at minimum, the basic needs for people: food, clothing, shelter, health, education, transportation. How do we bring the majority of people in the United States along with the possibilities of abolition. Most Americans can’t imagine an abolitionist society. How do we as educators change the conversation which then changes the narrative around this and make it imaginable? Most importantly that Capitalism can’t solve capitalism

Host Becca sits down with Dax who recently return from working and learning in India at Vandana Shiva's project Navdana. We discuss the historical and current work of agriculture. Navdana began as an example and teaching farm, showing that a farm without chemicals can exist. We also discuss on of the main aspect of the project, seeds saving as resistance to global capitalism.

Indigo host Anna sits down with Dr. Ari Brazier, community organizer & educator in Atlanta - Ari talks with us all about the #stopcopcity movement here in ATL, race, education, their work with ParentLab, children, abolition, and more!

*Photo of Remix, provided by Dr. Ari

Instagram accounts to follow

@atlparentlikeaboss

@stopcopcity

@thehighlanderschoolatl

@saveweelaunee

Songs:

1) Hard Times, Baby Huey

2) Violent, 2Pac

3) I Wish I Knew How to be Free, Nina Simone

4) Overjoyed, Stevie Wonder

Indigo host Anna sits down with Jasmine Burnett and Aja Arnold, organizers with Mainline ATL to talk about the upcoming Summer of Resistance here in Atlanta, learnings from past movements, organizing, and more.

"Through this campaign—which will include a series of rallies, demonstrations, teach-ins, and a three-day music festival & convergence hosted by Mainline—organizers and community members hope to reignite various types of activism and community building in the city. While the fight to #StopCopCity continues, organizers say it’s time to bring all intersections of Southern struggle and resistance together to fight against elements that preceded Cop City and allow police militarization to continue."

To connect with Summer of Resistance and follow events check out:

www.mainlineatl.com, Instagram pages: mainline_atl; strikeblac_scc; saveweelaunee; and stopcopcity

Songs:

Neith Sankofa - Hummingbird Medicine

Blue Scholars - Proletariat Blues

James Brown - Say it Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud

Show notes and resources:

https://www.mainlineatl.com/atlanta-organizers-announce-summer-of-resistance-stop-cop-city-juneteenth/

https://www.mainlineatl.com/police-escalate-harassment-south-atlanta-cop-city-site/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/08/cop-city-tortuguita-human-rights-investigation

Books Guests are reading:

Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village by William Hinton

The German Ideology by Karl Marx

In the Courts of the Conqueror by Walter R. Echo-Hawk

On the morning of April 25th, 2024 students at Emory University began their Gaza Encampment in the national movement to end the genocide and for academic institutions to divest from Israeli apartheid. Listen to the speeches of these brave students along with Rev Keyanna Jones as they peacefully speak out; and continue to center what they are fighting for. Minutes later they were met with violent repression from the Atlanta PD, GA state patrol, and Emory police.

Student Op-Ed

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/we-are-occupying-emory-university-to-demand-immediate-divestment-from-israel-and-cop-city/

Hosts Anna & Chris sit down with Jayna Ahsaf & Jonathan Elwell of FreeHerVT. This show is Part II of our look at Vermont and prisons - from the historical context of VT carceral systems to today's campaign to stop new prison construction. Jayna Ahsaf is the lead field organizer for FreeHerVT and Jonathan an organizer. We talk with them about the FreeHerVT campaign, women in prison, criminalization of certain populations, & abolition.

You can find Part I here:

https://on.soundcloud.com/oT6SmwM8e6F6iPhJ8

Songs:

1) Loretta Lynn "Women's Prison"

2) Wanda Jackson "Tennessee Women's Prison"

3) Lightnin Hopkins "Jailhouse Blues"

Show notes:

- National website: https://www.nationalcouncil.us

- FreeHer Zine: drive.google.com/file/d/11hILxjEc…qg9zTc-8ut3/view

- VT’s website: https://www.nationalcouncil.us/vermont

- VT Landing page (more info & links):

http://the-council.us/freehervt

- Jonathan's article: https://www.rakevt.org/2024/01/04/behind-the-smoke-and-mirrors-the-true-story-of-prin/

- Mariame Kaba’s zine:

https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/what-about-the-rapists

Part I of a two-part show on Vermont and incarceration. Hosts Chris and Anna spend the hour with Jonathan Elwell, organizer with the FreeHerVT campaign. In Part I, Jonathan speaks with us about the purpose of prisons, the history of incarceration and surveillance in Vermont, and the criminalization of the poor.

Part II will air next week and will focus on the FreeHerVT campaign with Jayna Ahsaf and Jonathan.

Songs:

1) Tom Waits: "Fish in the Jailhouse"

2) Warren Zevon: "Prison Grove"

3) Felice Brothers: "Rockafeller Drug Laws"

4) Public Enemy: "Black Steel"

Photo: VT State Prison, Windsor 1907

show notes:

FreeHer: https://www.freehercampaign.org/vermont

FreeHer zine

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11hILxjEcUBBU8KcjJOqxIqg9zTc-8ut3/view

Books:

Tip of the Spear - Orisanmi Burton

Golden Gulag - Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Host Anna sits down with Emory University students Bella and Zach Hammond, two leading organizers with Students for Socialism @ Emory. Bella and Zach talk about what influences shaped their political thoughts, organizing at Emory (and beyond!), media role, and hopes they have.

Info on GILEE

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/atlanta-mayor-rejects-demand-end-israel-police-training

Songs:

1) "Change Tomorrow" by DAM

2) "Yama" by Gitkin

3) "Me Gustan Los Estudiantes" by Mercedes Sosa