Radical Imagination

Are you ready to be inspired, provoked, and galvanized into action? Prepare yourself for a stimulating journey, as we kick-start Season 5 of Radical Imagination! I’m your host, Angela Glover Blackwell, and this season, we dive deep into the minds of activists, artists, educators, and leaders who are not just dreaming big but are also crafting innovative solutions for transformative change.

Our guests range from those using cutting-edge technology to preserve cultural languages and traditions, to educators pioneering an Afrofuturist high school curriculum. We explore movements to create land and housing justice and lift up the passionate young activists leading the charge toward a sustainable planet.   Join us as we chart paths toward a radically inclusive, multiracial democracy, and envision a more equitable nation and a better world! Coming soon on Season 5 of Radical Imagination!

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Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

"If we have any hopes of fundamentally breaking away from the patterns of the past and rupturing the inadequate present, the future can no longer be envisioned only by those with the privilege of time and space to imagine. It can no longer be constructed within a bootstraps narrative of personal responsibility and self-determination that treats only some as deserving of a roof over their heads. Our measure of progress must rely on how much we can transform our values to provide broad scale and equitable access to housing opportunities for all.”

In this episode, Angela talks to PolicyLink Housing Director Rasheedah Phillips — Afrofuturist, attorney, tenant organizer, policy advocate, and interdisciplinary artist.  Listen in as Angela and Rasheedah discuss how  time can be created, reclaimed, resourced, and redeemed; and the ways that we, collectively, must operate from a place of temporal abundance versus temporal scarcity.

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

Non-police emergency response remains an extremely relevant topic, even though we're seeing strong pushback against the Defund the Police movement -- including from those who were initially supportive.  Yet police, throughout the country, continue to remain at odds with the communities they are supposed to protect. In this episode, Angela discusses the potential of emergency triage that doesn’t involve police intervention with Brandon Anderson, an abolitionist and founder of the police reporting network Raheem and Arturo Carrillo, an emergency mental health clinician in Chicago, who is pushing for a more robust mental health support system. 

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

Since the pandemic, people have quit their jobs in record numbers, with around 47 million people leaving their jobs in 2021.  Many of these workers are Black and Latinx; many of them women.  

In this episode,  we examine what it means to have a healthy relationship with work, and we hear a radical new way to define the role of work in our lives. Angela speaks with Sarah Jaffe, the author of "Work Won't Love You Back," and welcomes back Saru Jayaraman, founder of One Fair Wage.

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

The history of the trans-Atlantic trade of  enslaved Africans has been rewritten, sanitized, flat out misrepresented, and often obscured by the lens through which we observe history. 

As a society, when we need to get a more enlightened look at ourselves and the world around us, we turn to the vision of artists. 

This week’s guest Ashley Shaw Scott Adjaye is artistic director of the World Reimagined -- a national public art project in the United Kingdom that explores the history & legacy of the trans-Atlantic trade of enslaved Africans; and presents a forward-looking approach to reframing history as an essential element toward solidarity and greater inclusion.

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

While reparations and reparative justice are just a talking point for some people, there is a growing movement in our country to reconnect Black people with land and property that was illegally stolen from them or their ancestors. In this episode of Radical Imagination, we learn about the radical movement for land justice– a blueprint for policy change that could pave the way for reparations for Black families nationwide. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with Kavon Ward –  poet, activist, and the founder of 'Where is My Land?'.   Kavon has been a leader in today's fight for reparations; helping win a landmark victory around justice for Bruce's Beach in Southern California. Kavon Ward's courageous work is a reminder of how important the times are for achieving justice. 

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

Today on Radical Imagination, Clyde Prout III, chairman of the Colfax Todd’s Valley Consolidated Tribe in California, tells the remarkable story of how his tribe reclaimed land stolen by the government nearly half a century ago. Native people were violently displaced from their ancestral homelands throughout US history, as land was stolen and sold to private owners, made “public” in the name of preserving natural resources, or set aside for agriculture and recreation. We’ll also hear from Jeff Darlington, the director of the Placer Land Trust, about the partnership that made it possible for the tribe to take back their land and restore it through traditional cultural and ecological knowledge.

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

Since becoming the first Sub-Saharan African country to win independence from a colonial power, Ghana has been an inspiration to Black Americans to return to Africa. For many, it's a brief journey. We're changed by what we learn about the culture and our collective past. And that informs our lives and our work when we return home. But other people stay. They make vital contributions to the culture, the economy, and the nation's future.

We hear from two Black women -- Renee Neblett the Founding Director of the Kokrobitey Institute and Tonya C. Saafir-Ankomah, Esq. (aka Sista Yaa) Founder of the Sankofa Repatriation Assistance Program and African Diaspora 126+, -- who repatriated to Ghana to start better lives for themselves and help pave the road for others in the Diaspora wishing to do the same.

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

Even today, when many of us are in pain because of systemic inequities, we tend to hold ourselves personally accountable for the trauma we bear.  And we think of healing as individual work. The season 4 debut of Radical Imagination upends these myths and frees us of the emotional burdens we shouldn't have to carry alone. Host Angela Glover Blackwell speaks with Prentis Hemphill, a writer, therapist, and the founder of the Embodiment Institute, about the revolutionary idea of collective trauma and how it can help us heal our selves, our relationships, our communities, and our society.

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us

Radical healing. Afro-futurism. Repatriation of stolen land. Housing justice. Black Americans returning to Ghana. Bold alternatives to work and policing. On Season 4 of Radical Imagination we transcend the borders of geography and policy to explore transformative ways of healing and repairing the sins of the past, and how they interconnect with the revolutionary work of creating a just, equitable future.

Coming this month!

Tune into Radical Imagination as we dive into the stories and solutions that are fueling change. www.radicalimagination.us