Reckon Interview

In the middle of making her newest record, Michaela Anne’s life went through a series of life altering changes. She became pregnant with and gave birth to her first child and her mother experienced a major hemorrhagic stroke. 

She spent the second half of her pregnancy, sitting by her mom’s bedside in Michigan, playing these new songs for her. They became a source of comfort, introspection and healing during a moment fraught with anxiety and unknowing.

As fate would have it, Michaela Anne’s new album, “Oh To Be That Free,” is filled with songs that examine the things that make us human. The flaws that we learn to love in ourselves, the ways that we must learn to love others the way that they need to be loved. As she watched her mom recover and her daughter’s first months in the world, Michaela had written the album she needed to hear. This week on the Reckon Interview, I sit down with the Nashville-based singer-songwriter to talk about her upcoming album. And we’ll hear a sneak peek of an upcoming single, “Does It Ever Break Your Heart.” 

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In his new collection of poetry “The Gleaming of the Blade,” Christian J. Collier examines his world through a cinematic lens. In one poem, he takes on the perspective of one of Jason’s victims in Friday the 13th VIII. In another, he writes from the voice of The Candyman. They’re engaging, subversive poems. But he’s also revealing a deeper truth, the way that American society can turn Black men into villains. Into monsters. Throughout this collection, the Chattanooga-based poet examines the fine line between intimacy and violence, between love and hate, divisions wrought by skin color.

This week on the Reckon Interview, we hear a few poems from Christian, learn about his life in Chattanooga and the artistic community he’s helping to build there, and we discuss the deeper truths that he’s unveiling in his work.

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We are seeing wave after wave after wave of legislation in this country that targets LGBT youth and adults. Especially the trans community. In Texas, an order issued by the governor would allow the state to take children away from their homes if their parents are trans affirming. In Florida and Alabama, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law could penalize teachers that displayed family photos with their same sex partners. Other laws and bills would require teachers to out gay students to their parents. 

Some politicians have tried to mask their intent with these bills as a way to “protect women’s sports,” though as the governor of Utah pointed out when he vetoed one anti-trans bill, the number of trans athletes competing is an incredibly small number. It’s a cynical effort to target a marginalized population in order to gain political power. It’s an approach to governing that has real consequences for real people.

This week on the Reckon Interview, we’re talking with Sydney Duncan, an attorney with the Magic City Legal Center in Birmingham, Ala. She offers pro bono services to queer and trans youth in Alabama. Students that know exactly who they are and are forced to deal with a society that is going out of its way to attack them. Sydney is a trans woman herself, and she walks us through a lot of the myths and hysteria that politicians use to misinform a public that knows very little about trans people.

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Danté Stewart is the author of “Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle.” Danté grew up in a Black Pentecostal community in South Carolina, but when he walked on to play football at Clemson University, he suddenly found himself in a very different faith environment. He kept getting drawn into white megachurch communities. The people he met were always nice and welcoming. They made him feel special. They assured him that Jesus didn’t see Black and white, that it was just one big Christian family. 

But after a few years of immersing himself in his new faith, Danté had an awakening. While he was dealing with the emotional pain of seeing young Black men killed by police on TV and across his social media, his new church family were doing their best to ignore it altogether. Talking about his lived reality as a Black man made white congregants uneasy. He may have felt welcomed there, but they were the ones who always belonged. 

And so Danté threw himself into Black liberation theology, reading an entirely different interpretation of scripture. One that connected him to a long line of leaders like Martin Luther King and, his main source of inspiration, James Baldwin. This week on the Reckon Interview, Danté Stewart discusses his experiences moving among faiths, whether Black Southerners and white Southerners worship the same God, advice for people who are struggling with their faith, and a lot more.

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Where does the South end and the rest of America begin? Is the South being Americanized or are we watching Southern influence spread to the rest of the country? That’s a topic tackled by Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker in their new book: The Southernization of America: A Story of Democracy in Balance.

Frye Gaillard is an Emmy award winning journalist and was the longtime Southern editor for the Charlotte Observer. He’s a keen observer of Southern culture and history and has written more than 30 books on the subject. For this book, he was joined by Cynthia Tucker, a Pulitzer Prize winner as a columnist and editorial page editor for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

On this episode, we discuss the origins of Southern influence on American politics, the ways that politicians from other parts of the country have inflamed some of the worst impulses in southern voters, why we keep having the same fights on topics like education and history and how some Southerners offer a path of hope for the country while others offer a warning.

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After his father died, Joe Garner found an old suit of his in the attic. His dad, Charlie had played bass at the Grand Ole Opry for decades and when Joe found the suit… he was struck with inspiration. He hadn’t grown up wanting to play country music but when he picked up the suit, he knew there was unfinished business with his dad and that maybe he could figure it out through music.

And thus, The Kernal was born. On his albums, he plays with conventions and standards and updates them with modern themes, like break up ballads that involve scrolling through Instagram. 

Listen to the Blood is the third album in a trilogy written in response to his father’s passing. This week, on the Reckon Interview, we discuss that journey, which has carried him from a small town in East Tennessee all over the country. We chat about where he finds his inspiration. And we talk about whether this is the end of that red polyester suit.

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In her new book of poetry, "White Bull," Elizabeth Hughey turns to an unlikely source: the language of notorious Birmingham police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor. Words are just building blocks. Tools. The same common language was used by Martin Luther King Jr. to liberate people as was used by Connor to enforce segregation and inspire violence. For a decade, Hughey sifted through his speeches, his private letters, even his receipts, to create a database of text from which she built something radically different. Turning the words of hatred into a language of poetry. This week on the Reckon Interview, she discusses what inspired her to take on this project and what she hopes readers gain from it.

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Aunjanue Ellis is nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the 2021 biopic King Richard. She’s a two time Emmy nominee for her work in When They See Us and Lovecraft Country. Christine Swanson is a two time nominee for the NAACP Image Awards for her films For the Love of Ruth and The Clark Sisters: The First Ladies of Gospel, which also starred Ellis. 

They recently made a short film called Fannie as a proof of concept in an effort to get a full biopic made about Fannie Lou Hamer. On the Reckon Interview, they discuss Hamer’s story and legacy, the hurdles for getting films like this made, and the relationship between art and advocacy. And of course we talk about Mississippi. 

Watch the short film, "Fannie" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8cco0wR2UU

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In her new book, “South to America,” Imani Perry dives into the heart of the “changing same” of the American South. Her work fits into a long tradition like W.J. Cash’s The Mind of the South, Albert Murray’s South to a Very Old Place, VO Key’s Southern Politics in State and Nation and WEB Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America, as books that unlock a deeper understanding of America through an expansive analysis of the South. 

Perry's South is a big South – a place filled with multiple Souths – that stretches from West Virginia to the Bahamas and beyond. Something in this conversation and i this book, will change the way you think about Southern identity and culture.

Buy a copy of the book here: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/south-to-america-imani-perry

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Cassidy Freeman stars as Amber Gemstone on the hit HBO comedy "The Righteous Gemstones." She joins the Reckon Interview to discuss the sources of inspiration for her character, how recent events reshaped the direction of the series, life on set in Charleston, her thoughts on the South and how she's carved a space for herself on such a crowded set.

The Righteous Gemstones is now streaming on HBO and HBOMax.

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