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In part two of our conversation with Dr. Jared Phillips, we trace the transformation of the Ozarks from an agrarian culture built on land, memory, and mutuality into a region shaped by corporate industry and consolidated power. We explore how poultry integration, economic policy, and the rise of companies like Tyson and Walmart reshaped Northwest Arkansas, altering not just the economy, but the identity of the place itself. This episode bridges the legacy of civil rights and labor with the next wave of regional change: the rise of Latino immigration, the demand for cheap labor, and the political decisions that continue to define who belongs.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-ozarks-with-dr-jared-m-phillips-part-2

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, we continue the story of Southeast Fayetteville—this time by examining the systems that helped shape, and often erase, its historic Black community. Architect and former Fayetteville Planning Commissioner Alli Thurmond Quinlan joins us to uncover how zoning policies, preservation rules, and land use codes have operated as tools of exclusion across generations. Building on the firsthand testimony shared in our last episode with Tommie Flowers Davis, we explore how seemingly neutral planning decisions have had deeply racialized consequences.

Alli helps us understand how policies like minimum lot sizes, nonconforming use codes, and historic preservation standards have systematically excluded Black residents from housing assistance, infrastructure investment, and neighborhood protection. Together, we ask: how can cities like Fayetteville begin to repair the harm? And how can planning be transformed into a tool for justice rather than a barrier to it?

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-fayetteville-historic-district-alli-thurmond-quinlan-flintlock

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 speak with longtime Fayetteville resident Tommie Flowers Davis about the disappearing legacy of Southeast Fayetteville’s Black community—and the movement to establish a Black Historic District before it’s too late. As a native of the neighborhood, a former educator, a developer, and a member of the Fayetteville Historic District Commission, Ms. Davis offers both personal testimony and a call to action. Through her story, we learn about the deep roots of Black families in Fayetteville, and how over time, through policies of exclusion and neglect, much of that history has been erased.

We explore how infrastructure disinvestment, zoning barriers, and city planning practices have disproportionately harmed Black residents and made it nearly impossible to access housing preservation resources. But this conversation isn’t only about what’s been lost—it’s about what remains. Ms. Davis helps us understand what it would mean to name and protect this history, not as nostalgia, but as a step toward belonging, justice, and repair in a city that still struggles to tell the full story of who built it.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-the-black-historic-district-with-tommie-flowers-davis

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, Dr. Michael C. Pierce, labor historian and professor at the University of Arkansas, helps us unpack the deep connections between race, labor, and the struggle for civil rights in Northwest Arkansas. Long before the region was known for corporate giants and suburban growth, it was home to radical union organizing, socialist movements, and even biracial political alliances. Dr. Pierce walks us through this overlooked history, from the coal miners of Sebastian County to the rise and transformation of political figures like Orval Faubus, showing how civil rights were never just about laws or integration, but also about power, work, and who gets to belong.

Together, we explore how systems of wealth and political control used race as a tool to divide poor Black and white communities, weakening labor movements and preserving elite influence. We examine how immigration, racial expulsion, and disfranchisement were not only acts of social exclusion but economic strategies. And we reflect on what it means today to live in a region where massive economic power coexists with rising inequality and housing insecurity. This conversation is about more than the past, it’s about the stories we inherit, the ones we ignore, and how honesty might offer a path toward wholeness.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-labor-civil-rights-dr-michael-c-pierce-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

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In this episode, we pause the historical narrative of Northwest Arkansas to check in with one of the region’s most important community leaders. Brad Sikorski is the new President and CEO of the Excellerate Foundation, stepping into the role after the transformative season under the leadership of Jeff Webster. With roots in Walmart, Walton Enterprises, and years on Excellerate’s board, Brad brings a deep understanding of both the challenges and the opportunities facing Northwest Arkansas.

We talk with Brad about the housing crisis, the future of programs like Upskill and Hark, and how Excellerate plans to serve the people who keep our communities running—educators, caregivers, city workers, and neighbors living on the margins. As affordability, equity, and a sense of belonging are increasingly under pressure, this conversation offers a vision for how institutions can respond with systemic solutions, public-private partnerships, and community-rooted care.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-brad-sikorski-excellerate-foundation-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

Send us a text

This episode brings us to Tontitown, Arkansas—a community formed by Italian immigrants who carved out a place of belonging in the Ozarks through stone, song, and story. Our guest, Emily Pianalto-Beshears, Manager of the Tontitown Historical Museum and a descendant of the original settlers, invites us into her family’s deep-rooted history. Through Emily’s eyes, we see how traditions like the Tontitown Grape Festival and the building of St. Joseph’s Church were more than community rituals—they were acts of resistance against erasure, anchoring identity to land and labor.

In a season exploring the story of Northwest Arkansas, this conversation reminds us that immigration is not a new chapter in the region's story, but a foundational one. Emily’s reflections expose how generational memory—passed down through music, oral history, and sacred space—preserves belonging in the face of forgetting. At a time when rapid growth threatens to smooth over local histories, Tontitown’s immigrant story challenges us to reckon with what is remembered, what is lost, and who gets to shape the story of this place.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-italian-immigrants-tontitown-emily-pianalo-beshears

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 the late 1800s, a group of Italian immigrants left the mountain villages of Northern Italy in search of opportunity and land in America. What they found instead was exploitation, malaria, and broken promises on the cotton fields of Sunnyside Plantation in Southeast Arkansas. 

In this first of a two-part series, filmmaker and journalist Larry Foley joins us to trace their story—how they came, what they endured, and how their exodus from the Delta to the Ozarks led to the founding of Tontitown, Arkansas. 

Foley’s documentary Cries from the Cotton Field becomes our guide into a story of labor, faith, and survival—while also illuminating the structural forces of colonialism, racism, and capitalism that shaped their journey. Through the voice of Father Pietro Bandini and the legacy of the families who followed him, we uncover a story that still echoes in our region today.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-cries-from-cotton-field-tontitown-larry-foley

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 of the underview, we sit down with Dr. Debbie Jones, Superintendent of Bentonville Public Schools, to explore the sweeping changes unfolding across Arkansas and the nation that are reshaping public education. Fresh off the end of the Arkansas legislative session, Dr. Jones helps unpack the implications of the newly signed ACCESS Act, the need for focus on behavioral health legislation, and other new education laws touching everything from school choice policies to expanded services for students and families. We also examine the national move to close the U.S. Department of Education, and what potential impacts that could bring to local schools.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Jones offers a steady voice on how these changes will affect students, families, and teachers. We talk about the growing needs for mental health services, the importance of access to accelerated coursework, new challenges around school choice and extracurricular eligibility, and the broader pressures reshaping public education. In a time of uncertainty, Dr. Jones reminds us that public education remains a cornerstone of community life—and that its future depends on all of us working together.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-dr-debbie-jones-state-bentonville-schools

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 of the underview, we sit down with John McLarty—geographer, regional planner, and longtime researcher with the Arkansas Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association. Over the past two decades, John has helped uncover and preserve the routes, burial sites, and stories of the Trail of Tears that run directly through Northwest Arkansas. From his early work mapping the Butterfield Stagecoach Route to the creation of the Heritage Trail Plan, John shares how trails became more than paths—they became a framework for truth-telling and remembrance.

This conversation reveals the complexity of the Trail of Tears: its legal battles, forced detachment marches, geographic logic, and the heartbreak experienced by the Cherokee and other Indigenous peoples as they were removed from their homelands. Together, we trace the footsteps of history through Pea Ridge, Fitzgerald Station, Cane Hill, and the ridgelines of the Ozarks. More than history, this is a call to responsibility—an invitation to remember, to preserve, and to ensure that these stories remain a visible part of the land and the identity of Northwest Arkansas.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-trail-of-tears-arkansas-john-mclarty

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 of the underview, we travel to the southern edge of Washington County to explore Cane Hill—one of the earliest white settlements in Northwest Arkansas—and speak with Vanessa McKuin, Executive Director of Historic Cane Hill. Vanessa brings her personal and professional insight as a preservationist and native Arkansan to help us understand how this small community became a cultural, educational, and historical crossroads. From its founding by Cumberland Presbyterians to its role along the Trail of Tears, its high population of enslaved people, and its ambitious effort to become a center of education, Cane Hill reveals how many threads of Arkansas history converge in one seemingly quiet place.

We uncover stories of resilience and contradiction: the founding of Cane Hill College in the 1850s; its destruction during the Civil War; the reemergence as Arkansas’s first co-ed college; and the often-overlooked Black community of Happy Hollow that existed just a mile away. Vanessa also shares the challenges and triumphs of modern preservation, including efforts to recover stories of enslaved people and Black students who later desegregated Fayetteville schools. What emerges is not only a sense of Cane Hill’s significance, but a larger reflection on what gets remembered, what gets preserved, and what wholeness might look like for a rural place with such a layered past.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-historic-cane-hill-vanessa-mckuin

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