Rattling the Bars's Mansa Musa explores how a one-woman play, The Peculiar Patriot, reveals the human cost of mass incarceration and the enduring ties between slavery and the prison system. The artist behind the play, Liza Jessie Peterson, has worked with incarcerated youth for decades, bringing their stories to the stage and to national audiences. Performed in more than 35 US prisons and filmed at Louisiana’s Angola Prison—once a plantation, now a maximum-security facility—the play became the basis of the documentary, Angola: Do You Hear Us? (Paramount Plus / Amazon Prime). As the fight for abolition and prison reform gains momentum, this story reminds us that art is not decoration—it’s a tool for awakening, organizing, and freedom.

🎥 Watch the full interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcDuOs80ya0


Resources

• Official site — https://www.lizajessiep.com
• Angola: Do You Hear Us? Voices from a Plantation Prison — Paramount+ / Amazon Prime
• Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/lizajessiepeterson 
• Voices of the Experienced (VOTE Louisiana) — https://voiceoftheexperienced.org
• National Black Theatre (Harlem, NY) — https://www.nationalblacktheatre.org

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Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Friday, November 7, 2025.

TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.

Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.

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Just 11 months into his second term, President Trump has harnessed the brutal power of the federal government to go to war with American cities, communities, and citizens. Since the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” in September, Chicago has become the epicenter of the Trump administration’s assault on immigrants, protestors, and political opponents, but Chicagoans on the front lines of that assault say the reality is even worse than people think. In this episode of the Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with CODEPINK national co-director Danaka Katovich to get an on-the-ground view of the federal siege of Chicago and the powerful grassroots resistance movements rising up against it.

Additional links/info:

• Danaka Katovich, CODEPINK, “Chicago battlefields: The cost of the war economy”
• Mansa Musa, Taya Graham, & Stephen Janis, The Real News Network, “'Spectacle of disorder': How ICE creates the chaos ICE, cops, and the military are called in to 'fix'”
• Julia Conley, Common Dreams, “ICE raid at Chicago daycare condemned as ‘domestic terrorism’”

Credits:

• Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Thursday, November 6, 2025.

TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.

Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

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Life on college campuses has changed dramatically in the last 10 months. While institutions of higher education continue to reel from the Trump administration’s top-down attacks and scramble to adjust, workers on campus say that their universities are simultaneously expanding their own internal repression and surveillance apparatuses to squash dissent. In this episode, we speak with a panel of graduate student workers and union members from Columbia University and the University of Michigan about the chilling new reality on their campuses and what it’s like to live, learn, and work there today. 

Panelists include; Vayne, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of the bargaining committee for Student Workers of Columbia; Conlan Olson, a PhD student in computer science at Columbia University and a member of the bargaining committee for Student Workers of Columbia; Jared Eno, a grad worker in sociology and public policy at the University of Michigan and a rank-and-file member of the Graduate Employees Organization.

Additional links/info: 

• Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) website, Instagram, Facebook page, and X page
• Student Workers of Columbia-UAW Local 2710 website, Instagram, Facebook page, and X page
• Email zap info: “Reject UMPD’s attack on anti-genocide activists!“
• Glenn Hedin & Barrett Dolata, The Michigan Daily, “Three pro-Palestine activists arrested for protesting speech given by former Israeli soldiers”
• Student Workers of Columbia press release: “Columbia threatens discipline for union picket, extends repression to labor action”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘The raids happened Wednesday, finals started Thursday’: FBI agents raid homes of pro-Palestine students at University of Michigan”
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “‘Worse’ than McCarthyism: Trump’s war on higher education, free speech, and political dissent”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘A tremendous chilling effect’: Columbia students describe dystopian reality on campus amid Trump attacks”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “‘People are hiding in their apartments’: Inside Trump’s assault on universities”

Credits:
Featured Music: Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song
Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

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From chronic overcrowding and inmate deaths to systematic abuse and lawbreaking by corrections officers, prison conditions in the state of Alabama have reached a crisis point. And yet, state leaders continue to push an “Alabama solution” that involves building more mega-prisons and expanding qualified immunity for officers. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Dakarai Larriett, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Alabama, about about the true cost of Alabama’s carceral crisis and his vision for an alternative vision of criminal justice. Guest:

• Dakarai Larriett is a community leader, entrepreneur, and Democratic candidate for US Senate in Alabama

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Wednesday, November 5, 2025.

TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.

Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.

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In the late 1700s, Indigenous peoples in the Spanish colonies of the Andes were forced to work for the Spanish. They tilled the land, worked in the textile mills and the mines. Those that didn’t faced heavy taxes. But in early November 1780, Indigenous Incan leader Tupac Amaru II led an uprising against the Spanish that he hoped would end it all.

It was the largest revolt against colonial Spain. Thousands would join the months-long rebellion. It would inspire uprisings elsewhere across the continent, and independence leaders. South America would gain its freedom from Spain just 40 years later.

See photos of the Tupac Amaru II statue in the Yanaoca town square here on Michael Fox's Patreon.

BIG NEWS! This podcast has won Gold in this year’s Signal Awards for best history podcast! It’s a huge honor. Thank you so much to everyone who voted and supported. 

And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen. And please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. A little help goes a long way.

The Real News’s legendary host Marc Steiner has also been in the running for best episode host. And he also won a Gold Signal Award. We are so excited. You can listen and subscribe to the Marc Steiner Show here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox’s reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews. 

Written and produced by Michael Fox.

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Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, November 4, 2025.

TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and worldwide.

Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.

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Taya Graham and Stephen Janis speak with voters in Harlem just 24 hours before the NYC mayoral election about what issues are important to them, what they think of the frontrunner candidate Zohran Mamdani, what they think of his opponent, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, and what they want the mayor to do for them.

Credits:Pre-Production: Taya Graham/Stephen Janis
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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