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In this episode, we continue the story of the “All Bikes Welcome” mural, this time from the perspective of the artist, Paige Dirksen, whose vision and brushstrokes brought it into being. What began as a joyful community project with more than 80 participants under the 3rd Street bridge at Coler Mountain Bike Preserve became the center of one of Bentonville’s most divisive civic debates.

Paige reflects on the joy of creating public art, the harm and exhaustion of months of controversy, and the sobering realization that inclusion itself was put on trial. She shares how public art can reveal both the beauty and the divides of a community, and what it means to hold integrity as an artist when your work becomes the stage for larger struggles over power, identity, and belonging. This episode, paired with our previous conversation with Dr. Rachel Olzer, reveals how art and advocacy intersect in shaping Bentonville’s character and in asking the deeper question: who truly belongs here?

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-mural-with-paige-dirksen-all-bikes-welcome

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

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In this episode, Dr. Rachel Olzer, Executive Director of All Bikes Welcome, reflects on what the “All Bikers Welcome” mural symbolizes, the weight of the public fight both personally and professionally, and what it reveals about belonging in Northwest Arkansas. This conversation is not only about a mural, but about who gets to belong in public life, and how a city chooses to shape its character in the face of conflict.

The mural itself, designed by artist Paige Dirksen and painted in collaboration with more than 80 community members and the nonprofit All Bikes Welcome, became far more than paint on a wall. Over six months, it sparked one of the most significant civic debates in Bentonville’s recent history. The City Council split 4–4 on whether to require changes, leaving the mayor to cast the deciding vote. For many, it revealed how national ideological politics and religious nationalism had been carried into local government, turning inclusion itself into a point of division.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-mural-with-rachel-olzer-all-bikes-welcome-bentonville

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

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In this season two final episode, host Mike Rusch takes us back to the gravel road where the story of Northwest Arkansas began, a road overlooking unmarked graves, a place of silence and memory. From that ground, the season has traced centuries of history: Indigenous nations removed from their homelands, enslaved people forced to labor, families rebuilding after the Civil War, immigrants shaping new communities, and the global systems of capitalism, faith, and labor that continue to define the region today.

This episode weaves together the voices of archaeologists, historians, descendants, organizers, and elders who guided us through the hidden stories of this land. It is both reflection and reckoning: a recognition that systems of power and exclusion remain, but also that we hold the possibility of repair, renewal, and belonging. As the season closes, we are reminded that the story of Northwest Arkansas is not finished. It is still being written in the lives of those who call this place home.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-story-of-northwest-arkansas-mike-rusch-conclusion

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

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We close this season with the voice of Barbara Carr, great-granddaughter of Aaron Anderson “Rock” Van Winkle, an enslaved boy brought to Northwest Arkansas in the 1830s who became one of the region’s most skilled builders after Emancipation. His hands helped construct homes, courthouses, churches, and Old Main at the University of Arkansas, yet his name was nearly erased from public memory.

Barbara’s story is one of pain and perseverance, of uncovering the truth about her family’s role in shaping this place, and of reclaiming a legacy long left out of the historical record. Her voice carries the emotional weight of inheritance, the clarity of lived truth, and the call to remember, repair, and restore. As the final voice of the season, she brings the story of Northwest Arkansas full circle, from the erased graves of the enslaved to the living presence of their descendants.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-aaron-anderson-rock-van-winkle-family-barbara-carr

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

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Aaron Anderson Rock Van Winkle was born into slavery and is believed to have been one of the first enslaved persons to be brought to Northwest Arkansas.  After emancipation, he became a landowner, father, and community member in Bentonville, Arkansas. But even today, his story remains largely absent from public memory. In this episode, we sit down with local historian Jerry Moore to explore Rock’s life and legacy, and to consider how the stories of formerly enslaved people have been preserved, distorted, or forgotten in the place they helped shape.

After the interview, we join Mr. Moore on a tour of three significant sites tied to Rock Van Winkle’s life: the stone farmhouse he owned, his grave at Bentonville Cemetery, and a rarely noticed public tablet at James Berry Park. Together, these places invite us to reflect on how memory is rooted in place and how public recognition is often reserved for only a few.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-aaron-anderson-rock-van-winkle-family-with-jerry-moore

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

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From Enlightenment ideals to the myth of the American frontier, the founding ideologies of the United States have long shaped how we define humanity, progress, and belonging. In this episode, Dr. Todd Stockdale invites us to trace how these ideologies, especially the Western liberal view of the autonomous individual, intersected with Protestant theology and national identity. Drawing on the work of John Locke, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, we explore how these frameworks have informed what counts as good and bad, civilized and savage, included and excluded, preserved and erased. And we ask what it would mean to reimagine our shared future not through domination, but through a deeper vision of what it means to be fully human.

Dr. Stockdale challenges us to examine how our ideas of justice, freedom, and selfhood have been formed by settler colonial logics, and how healing might begin by telling a different story. This conversation builds a bridge between earlier episodes exploring Indigenous erasure and theological complicity, and the final arc of this season, which seeks to confront systems of race, class, and gender that continue to shape our country and Northwest Arkansas today.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-founding-ideologies-dr-todd-j-stockdale

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

Send us a text

Religion in the South is more than tradition; it’s a force that has shaped politics, belonging, and identity across generations. In this episode, we return to Dr. Jared M. Phillips to ask for a historical view to try and understand where that power comes from, and how it takes root in the South and places like Northwest Arkansas?

Throughout the season, we’ve heard guests reference the role of faith, from schools to city planning, from community resilience to systems of exclusion. And while no single episode can capture the full complexity of religion in the South, this conversation asks us to trace the beginnings. What is the origin story of evangelical influence in American politics? How did race, region, and religion become entangled in the modern South? And what can we learn about the Ozarks, and ourselves, by looking at one of the most significant turning points: the rise of President Jimmy Carter?

Dr. Phillips helps us unpack how Carter’s 1976 election opened the door for Southern evangelicalism to enter the national political arena. But the story doesn’t end there. We explore how faith communities that once emphasized humility, justice, and community care found themselves swept into a movement intertwining spiritual conviction with political power.

This episode doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does offer a starting point. A moment to pause and ask: how did we get here? How have religious identities shaped who belongs, and who doesn’t, in our politics, our policies, and our public life?

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-president-religion-in-the-south-with-dr-jared-phillips

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

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In this episode, we sit down with Irvin Camacho, a Community Rights Organizer and immigrant advocate based in Northwest Arkansas. Irvin shares how his family's experience—his parents working in the region’s poultry plants—shaped his understanding of labor, language, and belonging. Through his work on language justice, immigrant rights education, and deportation defense, Irvin is at the forefront of organizing efforts to challenge anti-immigrant legislation and support families impacted by detention and deportation.

This conversation offers a clear and grounded look at how recent laws and policies in Arkansas are affecting Hispanic and Latino residents, and what it means to live in a place where systems of power often ignore or invisibilize entire communities. Irvin’s voice calls us to listen, to understand, and to ask what it truly means to be in community with one another.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-immigrant-advocate-irvin-camacho-community-organizer

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

Send us a text

In Northwest Arkansas, the poultry industry has long been a cornerstone of the region’s economic growth. Behind the refrigerated cases and production lines are thousands of workers, many of them immigrants, whose stories and experiences are rarely part of the public conversation.

In this episode, we sit down with Magaly Licolli, co-founder and Executive Director of Venceremos, a worker-based organization advocating for poultry workers in Arkansas. Magaly helps us explore the conditions inside the plants, the structural factors that shape workers’ lives, and the role that community organizing can play in amplifying their voices.

Together, we ask: What are the realities faced by the people who keep this essential industry running? How do policies around labor, immigration, and corporate accountability intersect? And what does it mean to build a region where all who contribute to its growth are seen, heard, and valued?

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-laborers-poultry-workers-magaly-licolli-venceremos

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message

Send us a text

In this episode, we confront one of the most culturally significant topics in Northwest Arkansas: the role of Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt in shaping not only the economy, but the entire identity of the region. These companies have brought immense opportunity, visibility, and resources to Northwest Arkansas. But they’ve also concentrated power in unprecedented ways, influencing housing, labor, immigration, policy, and public life.

To explore this history with clarity and care, we’re joined by Olivia Paschal, a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Virginia. Olivia’s work traces how these companies rose from the Ozarks and became defining forces in American capitalism. A native of Rogers, her work is rooted in both lived experience and deep academic research. Together, we unpack the values, policies, and conditions that allowed these corporations to flourish here, and the questions we must ask if we want to build a region where everyone can belong.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-companies-olivia-paschal-northwest-arkansas

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message