In this week's episode, Jess and Beth speak with award-winning organizer, political strategist, and LaTosha Brown about finding her voice and using it to lead social change. LaTosha, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, tells us about her critical work empowering black voters and fighting voter suppression in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. LaTosha also shares practical advice from her remarkable twenty-year career and encouraging insights about getting started in social activism. 

Links:

• Learn more about Black Voters Matter
• Make a plan to Vote in the 2020 Presidential Election

In this week’s episode, Jess and Beth explore what it takes to build social movements and the lessons we can learn from Congressman John Lewis - one of the giants of the struggle for civil rights in the U.S., who passed away on 17 July.
 
Later in the episode they talk to Professor Erica Chenoweth about why non-violent resistance is the most effective form of protest, and how history suggests it can take just 3.5% of a population to create political change.

Special thanks to Mike Boucher at Sonic Pictures for production support.

Links

• Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation - Congressman John Lewis, New York Times
• President Barack Obama's Eulogy at the funeral of Rep. John Lewis
• The Success of Non-Violent Resistance: Erica Chenoweth at TEDxBoulder
• Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule - Professor Erica Chenoweth
• The Future of Nonviolent Resistance - Professor Erica Chenoweth
• For more resources on non-violent direct action, see the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict 

This week Beth and Jess talk about the rights of essential workers as COVID infection rates continue to soar in many US states.

To learn more, Jess speaks to Sharon Block, Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Sharon describes how we can give workers a bigger say over their work - and how the costs of the pandemic are being borne disproportionately by low-wage workers, a population made up primarily of women and workers of color.

Jess and Sharon also explore police union reform, labor issues in the Presidential race, and changing campaign financing in the US.   

Special thanks to Mike Boucher at Sonic Pictures for production support.

Links

• US Workers Need More Power - The Washington Post
• The Workplace Powers That Employees Need - The Atlantic
• Worker Power and Voice in the Pandemic Response - Clean Slate Project at Harvard Law School
• Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse

In this episode Jess and Beth discuss the legacy of racial injustice in the UK and the US, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the lessons from other countries as we seek to acknowledge and dismantle structural racism. 

Later in the episode they're joined by Stan Henkeman, the Executive Director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) in Cape Town, South Africa, to talk about the country's Truth & Reconciliation Commission, the ongoing work to address racial economic imbalances, and the need for sustained dialogue.

Special thanks to our producer Mike Boucher at Sonic Pictures. 

Jess and Beth interview Matt Andrews about crisis leadership and lessons learned from public leaders' COVID-19 response. Matt, Edward S. Mason Senior Lecturer in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, has worked extensively in crisis and post-crisis contexts around the world. In this episode, he discusses how to create distributed models of leadership and how to communicate in the midst of complexity and uncertainty.

For more on public leadership, read Matt's blog: https://buildingstatecapability.com/

Monitoring the Covid-19 Employment Response: Policy Approaches Across Countries, Malcolm Wiener Center: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wiener/programs/project-on-workforce/covid-19-employment-response

Special thanks to our producer Mike Boucher, Sonic Pictures: https://www.sonicpictures.com/

In this first episode of Until Further Notice, Jess & Beth talk a little about their decisions to switch careers, make new plans, and reconfigure those plans in the wake of global pandemic. Later in the episode, they interview David Kessler, who is the founder of Grief.com and co-writer of On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. David’s work gained a lot of attention beginning with a widely-shared interview in the Harvard Business Review, titled That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief. Here, Jess & Beth speak to David about how to manage loss, when its time to make meaning of grief, and how leaders can help others navigate the process.

Special thanks to our producer Mike Boucher, Sonic Pictures: https://www.sonicpictures.com/