This episode features a presentation from Rev. Dr. Ry Siggelkow and Ricardo Perez on Organizing in the Spirit of Accompaniment.  In this episode,  Ry and Ricardo share stories of accompaniment through Ella Baker, SNCC, the Zapatistas and Pueblo de Lucha y Esperanza. 

Resources

-The Zapatista Principles
-Pueblos de Lucha y Esperanza

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Ry O. Siggelkow

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

Music: Kavyesh Kaviraj

Episode Recorded on October 24th, 2023

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode is a re-release of the Soul of Social Transformation Podcast hosted by Rev. Dr. Gary Green II and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis.

How do the unique vocational gifts of each of us within the collaborative, collective, and necessarily ongoing nature of social justice work? How might our contributions relate to the wider community that is seeking wholeness? What is our responsibility to one another to create a better world? How do we find meaning and purpose in our part of the work, trusting others to do theirs?

We're speaking with Jamil Stamschror-Lott. He and his wife are the founders of Creative Kuponya, a mental health practice in Minneapolis. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, mental health experts have seen a rise in Black people seeking therapy and Creative Kuponya looks to create a place for Black people to connect with Black therapists. His work has been featured in the New York Times.


Resources
-Creative Kuponya


Episode Transcription available here

Host: Gary F. Green II, Justin Sabia-Tanis

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode features a conversation with former pastor and co-founder of No More Deaths, Rev. John Fife. John reflects on the sanctuary movement that his church in Tucson, Arizona built in the 1980’s. He shares how the movement has changed and shifted in the decades since and how social change arose out of a deep commitment to faith and the initiative of communities to protect and care for each other. 

Resources

-No More Deaths/ No Más Muertes

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Ry O. Siggelkow

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

Music: Kavyesh Kaviraj

Episode Recorded on December 11th, 2023

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode features a conversation with theologian and professor, Rev. Dr. Gary F. Green II. Dr. Green shares about his research and his dissertation, Playing the Game: Unmarking “Beast” from the Bodies of Young Black Men. He reflects on the societal creation of realities and the potential of “play space” to release us from cultural codes and routines that recreate race and racism.

Resources

-Black Athleticism beyond “Beast”: Social Transformation Lunch led by Gary Green

-Gary F. Green II

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Ry O. Siggelkow

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

Music: Kavyesh Kaviraj

Episode Recorded on November 28th, 2022

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode features a conversation with Rachel E. Harding. Rachel is an associate professor of Indigenous Spiritual traditions in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Denver. Rachel also co-directs the Veterans of Hope project, a community initiative on religion, creativity, and inclusive democracy. A native of Georgia, she is a writer, historian, and poet, and a specialist in religions of the Afro-Atlantic diaspora. In her scholarship, she examines the relationship between religion, creativity, and social justice activism in cross-cultural perspective.

In this episode, Rachel shares about the book that she wrote with her mother, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism and Mothering. Rachel shares stories about the spirit and the faith that sustained social justice work in her family's life and in her own life.

Resources

-Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism and Mothering

-The Veterans of Hope Project

-Rachel E. Harding Website

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Ry O. Siggelkow

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

Music: Kavyesh Kaviraj

Episode Recorded on December 4th, 2023

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode is a re-release of the Soul of Social Transformation Podcast hosted by Rev. Dr. Gary Green II and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis.

In this episode, we look at our visions for a different world and what it takes to get there. What does vocation mean? What is our life’s work meant to be and how does that relate to the changes we need to see around us?

Before serving as Lead Pastor for Plymouth Congregational, our guest DeWayne Davis previously worked as a policy analyst in the Office of Governmental Relations for the Episcopal Church, as a lobbyist for Sallie Mae, and a decade as a Senior Legislative Assistant for three members of the U.S. Congress. He is married to Kareem Murphy, director of Government Relations for Hennepin County.

Resources

-More info on DeWayne Davis

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Gary F. Green II, Justin Sabia-Tanis

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode features a conversation with author, lawyer, and veteran activist Alice Lynd. Alice shares about the work of accompaniment to which she and her late husband Staughton Lynd committed their life. In this episode, Lynd shares her wisdom about the practice of nonviolence, Quaker liberation theology, and the meaning of accompaniment.

In memory of Staughton (1929-2022) and in collaboration with Alice, his lifelong companion and co-conspirator, the Leadership Center for Social Justice is excited to announce "Acting Together: A Series on Accompaniment," featuring conversations that explore the various dimensions of accompaniment and the possibilities it holds today for social justice.

This special episode with Alice Lynd is intended to introduce listeners to some of the themes of this series. If you enjoyed this episode and are interested in learning more about how accompaniment relates to care work and social justice, please join us on January 31 at 6:30pm (CT) in-person or online for "Caregivers in a Care-Less Society: A Panel on Care Work and Social Justice" featuring practitioners and scholars working at the intersections of pastoral and health care, disability justice, and social medicine. 

Resources

-Accompanying: Pathways to Social Change

-We Won’t Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors

-Nonviolence in America

-Liberation Theology for Quakers

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Ry O. Siggelkow

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

Music: Kavyesh Kaviraj

Episode Recorded on October 21st, 2023

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode is a re-release of the Soul of Social Transformation Podcast hosted by Rev. Dr. Gary Green II and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis.

What are next steps to explore your path? What else do we need to learn? Who do we need to talk to? What do we need to watch, read, listen to …? And we engage our moral imaginations: What does a just world look like? What methods of engagement do not yet exist that need to? What would enable our communities to thrive?

Our guest Rev. Dr. Molly T. Marshall has served in theological education for nearly forty years. Marshall believes she was put on the earth to love students, teach theology, guide spiritual formation, and challenge patriarchal structures that would hinder women from full acceptance in all forms of ministry. She has worked as a youth minister, campus minister, pastor, scholar, and theological educator, seeking to dismantle all forms of oppression.

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Gary F. Green II, Justin Sabia-Tanis

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This episode features a conversation with author and scholar Arun Kundnani. Kundnani shares about his most recent book, What Is Antiracism?: And Why It Mean Anticapitalism. Arun shares how race makes and remakes itself through capitalist structures. Through studying the histories of colonialism and capitalism, Kundnani tracks a line between the systems of racism in the past and connects it to the systems of racism today. Distinguishing between the liberal form of antiracism which prompts individuals to go inward, Kundnani encourages people to follow a tradition of radical antiracism work that focuses on developing collectives locally and globally that focus on fighting against the structures and systems that divide us.

Resources

-What Is Antiracism?: And Why It Means Anticapitalism

-Arun Kundnani Website

Episode Transcription available here

Host: Ry O. Siggelkow

Producer: Adam Pfuhl

Podcast Engineer: Michael Moua

Music: Kavyesh Kaviraj

Episode Recorded on August 16th, 2023

You can find out more about the Leadership Center for Social Justice on our website and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.