Making Contact

In this episode, long-time producers Anita Johnson and Salima Hamirani introduce the newest members of the Making Contact team, recap highlights from the past year, and preview what to expect from the show in 2023.

On today's show, we bring you a special encore episode from our archives to honor Black history and heritage. We take a look at the life and legacy of Bayard Rustin, one of the most central figures in the African American struggle for civil rights and freedom. Rustin was a pacifist, a gay man, and a practitioner of nonviolence who dedicated his life to racial equality, economic justice and ending warfare. This program first aired on Making Contact in 2021.

This week on Making Contact we bring you to "The Healing Project," a multimedia installation that shares stories from incarcerated people about how the trauma of imprisonment has impacted their lives and families.

On the face of it, the legal arguments at the Supreme Court over the Indian Child Welfare Act seem to be a custody battle over Native children and the right to adopt them by white parents. But, the funding behind the court case hints at something deeper and could dismantle indigenous sovereignty as we know it.

Joshua Potash, a New York City-based anti-capitalist abolitionist discusses the history and theory behind mutual aid with our partners at The Response Podcast.

On today's show we learn about worker cooperatives: what are they and can they offer an alternative to the dominant capitalist mindset? Our partner podcast Upstream brings us to a bike and skate shop in Richmond, CA that's providing a much-needed service to its community, while also empowering its own workers, in this story that first aired in 2018.

This week on Making Contact we continue with our look at a community of unhoused people in Echo Park in Los Angeles, California and how they were forcibly evicted by police despite an enormous show of support from protesters. Thanks to our podcast partners at 70 Million we bring you part two of "Punished and Persecuted for Being Unhoused."

Thousands of social justice leaders in communities all over the world passed away this year.

We're closing out the year, as we usually do, with inspiring words from some of the Fallen Heroes of 2022.

In the midst of our stress and trauma dealing with the sometimes harsh realities of life, its hard to imagine what stories we will ultimately tell our children and grandchildren. This week's Making Contact is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families.