South Bend on Purpose

This week, and every week in between interviews, we are trying something new. Our friend John Garry is joining the show to share "prose for the city" with us—shorter episodes that will contain a poetry reading and guided reflections.

We asked John to share why we're trying this new kind of episode:

"Poetry is a conversation with your community. I love poetry. It is, for me, a way that I have seen new parts of our city and seen new parts of the story. And it lends itself well to thoughtful practice. So, this is our chance to have a conversation and to create some open and structured space to think about certain aspects of our city that maybe we hadn't appreciated and the way we fit into that story."

South Bend on Purpose is a podcast about place, belonging, and South Bend co-hosted by Jacob Titus and Dustin Mix. We enjoy conversations with the people who shape our city by practicing their purpose. And read poetry to reflect on our city and our own story in it.

New episodes are published every Tuesday morning. For comments and questions about the show, please write to comments @ westsb.com. Thank you for listening.

This week, we enjoy a conversation with Pam Blair, a local artist and organizer of the Poetry Den—a community-based safe stage for the spoken word hosted at the Civil Rights Heritage Center.

South Bend on Purpose is a podcast about place, belonging, and South Bend co-hosted by Jacob Titus and Dustin Mix. Conversations with people who shape our city by practicing their purpose, and poetry to reflect on our life together. New episodes every Tuesday morning.

We're back for a new, fifth season of South Bend on Purpose. 

This week we welcome Kathy Burnette to the podcast. Kathy is the owner of The Brain Lair, a bookstore in South Bend focused on developing empathy and building community with inclusive books. The store was recently included in The Oprah Magazine's "125 Black-Owned Bookstores in America That Amplify the Best in Literature" and next week is hosting a virtual event with Chasten Buttigieg to discuss his new book.

Kathy's work is unique and it is vital to the life and growth of our city. A city our size in the American Midwest probably shouldn’t have a Brain Lair, but she has chosen to do this work here in South Bend.

Until we're on the other side of the pandemic, you can find the store at brainlairbooks.com and on Twitter @brainlairbooks.

One year since the murder of Eric Logan and just weeks since the murder of George Floyd, our city is in the streets calling for justice.

This week, we listen to these calls at the largest protest of the month in downtown South Bend. It occurred on the evening of Friday, June 5th, and was organized by Black Lives Matter South Bend and a group of recent high school graduates.

A companion video with footage shot by Ryan Blaske is streaming on Vimeo.


Referenced Links
Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is Hopeful - The Ezra Klein Show
'Community' Is a Verb. And It’s Hard - The United States of Anxiety
Not Just Another Protest - It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders
A Decade of Watching Black People Die - Code Switch
The Least You Could Do - Reply All
A Secret Meeting in South Bend - The United States of Anxiety

This week we welcome Jenny Casas to the podcast. Jenny is a reporter for New York Public Radio’s Narrative Unit. She is New York based, via Chicago, where she reported on and produced season one of The City, USA Today's first narrative podcast about a 6-story tall illegal dump. 

We met Jenny when she began reporting for an episode of WNYC's The United States of Anxiety titled, “A Secret Meeting in South Bend,” which told the story of Better Homes of South Bend: an early African American building co-op formed by Studebaker employees. 

Find Jenny's latest work at wnyc.org and follow her on Twitter.

Referenced Links

Black Lives Matter South Bend Rally for BLACK LIVES – June 5, 2020 @ 6pm
Brain Lair Books 'This List is Anti-Racist' Reading List

This week, we podcast remotely with our friend and collaborator Chuck Fry, who is fresh off the release of his new hit video "South Bend, Lean on Me."

In this conversation we discuss Chuck's road to South Bend, how he learned to tell stories, why he got out of bed to start creating things during quarantine, and the internal battles that come with being a full-time artist. It is one of our best yet.

New episodes of South Bend on Purpose release every other Wednesday.

Chuck Fry is a director and DJ based in South Bend. Find his work at chuckfry.com and follow him on Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

On this forty-fourth episode, we record remotely for the first time and are joined by Jason Miller for a long conversation about the state of belonging amid the pandemic.

New episodes will release every other Wednesday.

Jason Miller is a resident of South Bend and the founding pastor of South Bend City Church.

Welcome to the third episode of our series documenting our Kickstarter-funded trip to South Carolina.

On this episode, Jacob and Dustin are joined by Maria Gibbs and John Garry to reflect on a Saturday in Greenville, South Carolina where we were confronted with a widely gentrified city and unexpectedly met a supporter of Mayor Pete who had traveled to see South Bend last year.

Referenced Links
The New York Times - Why This Trump-Leaning Corner of South Carolina Has The Jitters

Welcome to the second episode of our series documenting our Kickstarter-funded trip to South Carolina.

On this episode, Dustin and Jacob are joined by Maria Gibbs and John Garry to reflect on a Friday in Columbia, South Carolina where we ate barbecue, knocked on doors in suburban and rural neighborhoods, and attended Mayor Pete’s final town hall in the state.

Referenced Links
Eater Carolinas - True BBQ Claims Best Hash in South Carolina