We never left. But this is the first new class since June.

Dr. David J. Johns opens the fall with a correction he's been carrying in public. For years he told rooms full of people that PBS should bring back Schoolhouse Rock. He was wrong twice—and the second mistake turns out to be the whole episode.

In 1979, ABC shelved a three-minute cartoon explaining checks and balances because network executives feared the government being checked would come after their broadcast license. Nearly fifty years later, a third of American eighth graders score below basic in civics, which means they likely can't describe the structure of their own government. Nobody has to shelve anything now.
This solo episode walks the three rings we should have all been taught, then shows what happens in the gap between how government is supposed to work and how it's being worked.

Congratulations to Congressman Everton Blair, sworn in September first as the first openly LGBTQ+ person Georgia has sent to Congress—a seat decided by fewer than fifteen hundred votes, won by a man who came up through a school board. Appreciation for Senator Shevrin Jones and Representative Michele Rayner, who both lost on August eighteenth after a smear about a candidate's health status and dark money moving through a committee formed weeks before the vote. And a hard look at Inglewood Unified, where an elected school board has kept its seats and lost its votes for fourteen years.

Plus: why Black joy is not the intermission, what Afrofuturist dreaming has to do with organizing, and why the real AI is Ancestral Intelligence.

We're heading into the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 55th Annual Legislative Conference. Come find us at NBJC's OUT on the Hill.

Let's All Get Free.

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ICYMI: A Back-to-School Special Rerun

Stephanie Allen does God’s work.  A career educator for more than two decades, Ms. Allen currently teaches high school in Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, North Carolina, the third largest school district in North Carolina. She was recognized as a Teacher of the Year in 2019 and 2024–a recognition she’s earned. This episode features the front-line experiences of a classroom teacher, centers stories about under-supported students, and describes necessary steps to dismantle the social hierarchy that relegates Black students to the lowest rungs of every quality of life indicator ladder.

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ICYMI!

Andrea Foggy-Paxton brings a unique perspective to leading change across sectors, drawing from leadership roles in start-up organizations, established organizations, and philanthropic organizations supporting systems transformation.  This episode answers the questions: What is civics, and why should it be taught to all students? Andrea shares lessons from her experience as an industry titan and appointed school board member.  She also talks about philanthropy and corporations' responsibility for ensuring educational equity.

edloc.org
@afoggypaxton


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Summer Rewind Episode

In this deeply personal and politically urgent conversation, Dr. David Johns welcomes his White House family—Deesha Dyer, former Social Secretary to President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama—for a raw discussion about what we lose when power demolishes history, and what endures when community builds with intention.

Deesha takes us inside the moment she saw excavators tearing down the East Wing of the White House in October 2025—the space where she orchestrated state dinners, opened doors for people who never thought they'd walk through them, and made the People's House truly belong to the people.

This conversation moves from the rubble of demolished institutions to the unshakeable foundation of community organizing. Deesha shares lessons learned from Michelle Obama about grace under pressure, why she wrote Undiplomatic for Black girls who "risk it all," and what defending democracy actually looks like in practice: investing in local organizations, letting leaders lead in their expertise, documenting our work, and showing up for each other with intention.

Deesha's story is a masterclass in refusing to let imposter syndrome—or anyone else—define your worth. As she reminds us: buildings can be demolished in 72 hours, but they can't demolish the memories, the legacy, or the collective power we build together.

This is required listening for anyone who believes that mutual aid isn't charity—it's how we survive, build, and love each other into liberation.

Website: DeeshaDyer.com
Instagram: @deedyer267
Email: [email protected] (She answers every email!)
Book: Undiplomatic: How My Attitude Created the Best Kind of Trouble
(Available at libraries and independent bookstores)


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I'm from Los Angeles. So when I picked up Dr. Terrell Winder's Shameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA, it read like a love letter to a home I'm watching change—and a map of how young Black gay men build family, selfhood, and joy inside all that change anyway.

This week, Dr. Winder—sociologist and urban ethnographer at UC Santa Barbara—pulls up to the classroom to teach us unspoiling: his framework for refusing shame and rejecting the burden of stigma outright, no matter what it costs. We get into the affirming spaces that keep our babies alive and why they're under attack right now; why intersectionality can't keep being told to wait its turn; and what Noah's Arc's first-ever Emmy nomination means in a season when Black and Black gay stories are being pulled off shelves.

Because when you take these spaces away, Dr. Winder is clear about what we lose: lives.

Go get the book, sit with it, and then go build a room where somebody can put their burden down.

About the guest
Dr. Terrell J. A. Winder is Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. A Baltimore native, he earned his B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia and his Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA (2017). His research spans race and ethnicity, sexuality and sexual health, qualitative methods, and education.

Key ideas & theory

• Unspoiling — Dr. Winder's framework: a stigma response that centers the stigmatized person rather than the comfort of the stigmatizer; refusing shame instead of managing it.
• Spoiled identity / stigma — Erving Goffman's foundational concept, and the classic responses of passing and covering that Dr. Winder argues break down for people carrying more than one stigma at once.
• Intersectional stigma & "intersectional recovery" — holding race, sexuality, and gender together rather than deferring one for later; recovering the full selves of figures history flattened.
• "Visibility is survival" — his argument that ethnography documents threatened histories and everyday Black LGBTQ life.

People mentioned

• Erving Goffman — sociologist, Stigma and the "spoiled identity."
• Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter — sociologist and chair of African American Studies at UCLA; credited with first posting the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (August 2012); the BLM movement/network was later co-founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Co-author with Dr. Winder of "Space, Place, and Urban Future."
• Bayard Rustin — Black gay civil rights strategist, chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.
• George Washington Carver — scientist cited as an example of a flattened, partially-told legacy.
• Patrik-Ian Polk — creator of Noah's Arc.

Organizations & spaces

• Better Brothers Los Angeles / The Truth Awards. 
• Native Son.
• Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen (Issa Rae's LA spot) and Bricks & Scones (Larchmont). 

Media & culture

• Noah's ARC — Patrik-Ian Polk's groundbreaking series, the first scripted show centering Black gay men; Noah's ARC: The Movie (the 20th-anniversary reunion) earned a 2026 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Choreography, the franchise's first-ever Television Academy recognition.
• Pose, Insecure — referenced in conversation and This or That.
• My Best Friend Rodney — Rodney Chester's interview podcast.
• Anita Baker & Luther Vandross — the This or That showdown.

Further reading — Dr. Winder's scholarship

• Shameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA (NYU Press, 2026).
• "Unspoiling Identity: An Intersectional Expansion of Stigma Response Strategies" (Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2023).
• "Visibility Is Survival: The Chocolate Maps of Black Gay Life in Urban Ethnography."
• Marcus Anthony Hunter & Terrell J. A. Winder, "Space, Place, and Urban Future," in Research Handbook on Intersectionality (ed. Mary Romero, Edward Elgar, 2023).
• "The Discursive Work of 'Bottom-Shaming'" — 2024 SSSP Outstanding Article co-winner.

Connect with Dr. Winder
Social: @BmoreTerrell · Web: terrellwinder.com

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In case you missed it... In this rewind episode, I'm in conversation with the brilliant Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw—legal scholar, civil rights advocate, chief architect of Critical Race Theory. 

From her parents' kitchen table discussions that shaped her critical consciousness, to her groundbreaking work challenging legal institutions, to founding the African American Policy Forum, Professor Crenshaw has spent decades translating academic theory into tools for resistance. 

In this powerful conversation, we explore what it means to be "a born back talker," why pivoting away from our truth won't save us, and how we can resist critically—and in community—during these challenging times. Enjoy!

Resources

• Backtalker: An Amercian Memoir 

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In this Rewind episode, listen as Dr. David J. Johns discusses voting and our rights under attack.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is gone. Not weakened. Not under threat. Gone. The legal architecture that turned 7% Black voter registration in Mississippi into 60%—dismantled, decision by decision, by a Supreme Court that was never neutral and was never on our side.

But that's not even the whole story. Because while the courts were killing the VRA, the Justice Department was being turned into a weapon. FBI agents raided a Black state senator's office mid-day—Fox News already on the scene—while allies under federal investigation had their evidence destroyed. Ballots from Fulton County are in federal custody. Arizona. Michigan. They are building the architecture of election interference before the midterms. In public. And most people don't even know it's happening.

This episode is about all of it. The Proud Boys as a militia. The Roberts Court as an antidemocratic enforcement mechanism. The Southern Strategy, sixty years old and running on steroids. And the organizing tradition—Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Hungary's opposition movement—that proves rigged maps can be beaten and stolen futures can be reclaimed.

This is the class I didn't want to have to teach. But you need it. Pull up.

SHOW NOTES

• The death of the Voting Rights Act—Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Brnovich v. DNC (2021), and the April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which Justice Elena Kagan called "all but a dead letter."
• The pardon of 1,500+ January 6th participants and the DOJ's move to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders.
• The FBI raid on Fulton County's election center, the subpoenas targeting Arizona and Michigan 2024 ballots, and what it means for the midterms.
• The mid-day FBI raid on Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas's office, with Fox News cameras already rolling—and not one charge filed.
• The two-tier justice system in plain sight: evidence destroyed for allies, prosecutions launched against opponents.
• Elie Mystal's proposal to add 20 justices to structurally change the Supreme Court's incentive for extremism.
• How Hungary's opposition built 208 local chapters and 50,000 poll watchers—and won a supermajority against a gerrymandered map.
• The Afrofuturist tradition of Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin as the organizing inheritance we carry forward.
• Black Power War Room — blackpowerwarroom.com 
• National Black Justice Coalition — nbjc.org 
• NBJC Equity Week — nbjc.org

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What does it mean to tell a Black boy “I love you”—period? Not “love, bro.” Not “love you, big dog.” Just: I love you.

That question sits at the heart of this conversation between Dr. David J. Johns and Phil Agnew, Dream Defenders co-founder, community organizer, and co-author of P.S. Eye Value You, a children’s book created with Brandon Vega and artist Damon Davis through their imprint Black House Publishing.

Phil talks about what it took to write a book he desperately needed as a child—and still needs now. He shares the full story of Roots Bookstore & Market in Liberty City, born from grief, spirit, and a stranger’s unexpected email. He names exactly what’s happening when patriarchy repackages itself for the algorithm and spends billions to recruit brothers away from their own freedom. And he offers what he calls “models for new ways of being”—not because it’s politically correct, but because the old ways never made anyone happy.

Phil’s peace right now? Real, hard-fought, and honest. His message to the tired brother? The transition will be clunky, but it’s so great over here.

Class is in session. Pull up.

SHOW NOTES
Resources & References

• P.S. Eye Value You
  A children’s book by Phil Agnew, Brandon Vega, and Damon Davis, published through their imprint Black House Publishing. Told through poetry and illustration, it is a love letter to Black boys learning themselves in a world that doesn’t always see them clearly. pseyevalueyou.com

• Roots Bookstore & Market
  A Black-owned bookstore at 6610 NW 15th Avenue in Liberty City, Miami, Florida. Seeded in part from the personal library of Barney Agnew—Phil and Danny’s father, known on Chicago’s South Side as “Barney the Bookman” (a former Jeopardy contestant). Open Tuesday–Saturday. rootsbookstore.com

• Black Men Build
  A national organization co-founded by Phil Agnew in 2020 that brings Black men into the movement for racial, social, and gender justice through political education, mutual aid, mass meetings, and men’s circles. Publishes WARTIME, a digital and print magazine. Chapters throughout the country. blackmen.build

• Dream Defenders
  A Florida-based human rights organization co-founded by Phil Agnew in 2012, dedicated to ending policing and abolishing prisons through multi-racial organizing. Rose to national prominence following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. dreamdefenders.org

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In case you missed it, this episode is a re-release of an amazing conversation with Dr. Christina Grant.

Andre 3000 told us the South has something to say, and Dr. Christina Greer wants us to heed the lessons that Black women political leaders from the South are teaching us. Dr. Greer stops by the class to talk about her latest publication, “How to Build a Democracy. From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams,” and what it means to grow beyond fear, to build upon foundations established by our ancestors, being prepared to thrive at Historically White Colleges and Universities, the importance of political tithing and not waiting for America to grow up fully–she may never.  

How to Build a Democracy. From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/how-to-build-a-democracy/F34AB82F40A6FFD835D39C8AF46DA530 

Instagram: @dr_cmgreer

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Dr. Bianca Baldridge is back in the class—and this time she brought her new book.

Associate Professor of Education at Harvard University and former youth worker for over two decades, Dr. Baldridge has spent her career shining light on the spaces where Black children are seen, held, and loved outside of school walls. Her new book, Laboring in the Shadows: Precarity and Promise in Black Youth Work (Stanford University Press, 2026), is one of the most necessary things I have read in years. I don't do courtesy. I do testimony.

There are an estimated 2.53 million youth workers in this country. Young people spend only 18% of their waking hours in school. And yet we have no national youth policy. No floor. No framework. No "do good and be paid well."

This conversation changes that. Pull up.

Books

• Laboring in the Shadows: Precarity and Promise in Black Youth Work — Stanford University Press (February 2026)
  Publisher page & order: sup.org/books/sociology/laboring-shadows 
• Reclaiming Community: Race and the Uncertain Future of Youth Work — Stanford University Press (2019)
• 2019 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Book Award

Previous Episode

• And We Still Keep Fighting — Teach the Babies w/ Dr. David J. Johns (July 2, 2024)

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