Music has long been central to the fight for freedom—the rhythmic heartbeat of the struggle for justice. From Beyoncé to Shaboozey to L’il Nas X and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Black artists have sparked a much-needed conversation about the rich legacy of Black artistic achievement in multiple genres of American music. This episode celebrates the Black roots of country, blues and folk music by bringing together a dynamic group of artists and scholars to reclaim this often ignored history.

Guests: Jake Blount (Musician and Historian), Amythyst Kiah (Banjo Player and Historian), Amanda Ewing (Luthier), Tim Wise ( Writer and Racial Justice Educator), Denitia Odigie (Musician).

It's the 11th anniversary of the #SayHerName Campaign. To commemorate, we're uplifting a favourite #SayHerName episode from our archive.

Please join us on Dec 8 in NYC for a staged reading of #SayHerName - The Lives That Should have been, featuring a star-studded cast of performers, a talkback with the mothers of the #SayHerName Mothers Network, and a post-show party with performances by special guests. Get your tickets here.

This episode highlights a new milestone for the #SayHerName campaign: a new book, entitled #SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence. 

Co-authored by podcast host Kimberlé Crenshaw and the team at the African American Policy Forum, this book helps readers better understand Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. It explains —through Black feminist storytelling and ritual — how we can effectively mobilize various communities and empower them to advocate for racial justice for Black women, girls, and femmes.

In this podcast episode, you'll hear incredible performances from actors at each of our #SayHerName book tour stops in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. You'll also hear from members from the #SayHerName Mothers Network, a sisterhood of women who have lost other women, girls and femmes in their family to police violence.

You'll also hear from Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead, Dr. Dorothy Roberts, and Kali Holloway, each of whom served as cohosts at book tour stops in their respective cities. They reflected with Dr. Crenshaw on the power of the tour, the calls to action from the book, and the urgency of the lessons the book contains.

Centering Black women’s experiences in police and gender violence discourses sends the powerful message that, in fact, all #BlackLivesMatter, and that the police cannot kill without consequence. Supporting AAPF ensures that this important research and testimony continues to inspire change.

To purchase your copy, click ⁠here⁠.

Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks), with Dorothy Roberts @DorothyERoberts, Kaye Wise Whitehead @kayewhitehead, and Kali Holloway @kalihollowayftw.

Produced by Nicole Edwards and the team at the African American Policy Forum.

Mixing by Sean Dunnam

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.

This episode features Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson with professors Carol Anderson and Nancy MacLean, in conversation with our host Kimberlé Crenshaw. This riveting and timely conversation shows how anti-Blackness can be weaponized to harm democracy for all through voter suppression, money in politics, and the erosion of democratic safeguards.

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by authors Jason Stanley and Randi Weingarten to discuss why authoritarians and fascists target education on the path to destabilizing democracy. They unpack how book bans, attacks on teachers, and efforts to erase history from public institutions threaten the democratic project, and what we can do to fight back.

As we slide into autocracy, disparities impacting Black Americans are being ignored while Black excellence is actively erased from our workplaces, museums, and history books. These attacks are no longer cloaked with dog whistles. They're happening in plain sight, and endangering our health, eliminating our jobs, and gutting our civil rights infrastructure. Despite the scale of this attack, the response remains muted—even within our own communities. What must we do to sound the alarm and ensure that others hear it? Where do we go from here?

Featuring:

In part 2 of this series, host Kimberlé Crenshaw, refutes the myth that book and curricula bans seek to restore “parental choice” over what kids are exposed to, linking attacks on school lessons about race, gender and more to a broader attack against public education and democracy itself. Join as she traces the history of today's prominent, pro-censorship parent groups throughout American history, back to the Daughters of the Confederacy. 

Featuring:

- Karen Cox, professor of History at UNC-Charlotte

- David Yacovone, lifetime associate at Harvard University’s Hutchin’s Centre for African and African American Research, and author of author of Teaching White Supremacy

This is an Intersectionality Matters! podcast, produced by the African American Policy Forum.

Hosted and co-written by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks)

Sr Producer and co-writer Nicole Edwards

Associate Producers Madison Belo and Sana Hashmi

Mixing by Reza Daya with support from Sean Dunnam

Follow us on Bluesky and Instagram , or via aapf.org

A special collaboration with Today with Dr. Kaye, this episode was taped live at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C.

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw, with Kaye Wise Whitehead and guests Time Wise, Karen Attiah, Melanie Campbell, Janel George, Ambassador Elizabeth McKune, and Barbara Arnwine, discuss the importance of protecting Black American history through fighting for the Smithsonian, and why the struggle to protect museums goes hand in hand with the struggle to protect democracy.

Learn more about the Freedom to Learn Coalition and the annual National Week of Action at freedomtolearn.net

This episode was produced by the team at the African American Policy Forum and the team at Today With Dr. Kaye from WEAA.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

At the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. They explore how museums shape national identity. They also historicize the current political attacks aiming to erase Black narratives, as institutions like the Smithsonian and Whitney Plantation face censorship and defunding because of executive orders.

This episode outlines why defending America's memory is essential to defending democracy itself.

Dive deeper:

This episode used clips from:

Hosted and co-written by Kimberlé Crenshaw

Sr Producer and co-writer Nicole Edwards

Mixing by Sean Dunnam

Scripting support from Kevin Minofu, Kristin Penner, Meredith Shiner, and Tim Wise.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Host Kimberlé Crenshaw takes listeners to Alabama to learn about the contemporary importance of Bloody Sunday and the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

Featuring:

Cliff Albright, co-founder, Black Voters Matter

LaTosha Brown, co-founder, Black Voters Matter

Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF)

1965 foot soldiers Denise Jaringan-Holt and Alice Moore

Click here to listen an uncut conversation about the Selma Jubilee with Kimberlé Crenshaw on the Laura Flanders and Friends podcast.

Podcast co-written and produced by Sr. Producer Nicole Edwards

Mixing and sound design by Sean Dunnam

Podcast art by Ashley Julien

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters (Twitter), @IMKC_podcast (Instagram + Bluesky)

In this episode, host Kimberlé Crenshaw is joined by some of the country's brightest legal minds to discuss the Trump administration's executive orders, how they'll affect progressive movements, and what communities can do to defend those affected.

Featuring:

Damon Hewitt

David J. Johns

Russel Robinson

Nina Turner

Podcast mixed and produced by Sr. Producer Nicole Edwards

Under the Blacklight is produced by Kevin Minofu

Podcast art by Ashley Julien

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us at @intersectionalitymatters (Twitter), @IMKC_podcast (Instagram + Bluesky)