Wanda's Picks

We open with an interview with author, Doris I. Mangrum, whose A Soiled Identity: From Triumph to Tragedy and Back Again, tells the story of Darnell Cookson, former Marine and former felon as he rejoins society. However, this is not a typical rehabilitation story. Told in the protagonist's voice as if we were seated in his home one evening getting to know one another, we meet Darnell just as he arrives home from prison to new wife, new child and many relationships he has to restore, like that between he and his two older daughters by a prior marriage, and his kid brother who is making a bit too much money fast. Darnell tries to hold his head up when applications are rejected and interviews have no follow-up calls, but it is hard. Darnell's reentry is a community venture; each chapter ends with what Mangrum calls, "Choice Moments" where her audience gets to imagine a "what if?" In "Live Your Life," the reader is invited to learn from Darnell's experiences while we also gear up to participate in an "Idea Infusion," which per chapter is a way to make the returning veteran or prisoner feel welcome and supported (171). Visit https://www.facebook.com/LetsSaidiana

Musicians Damu Sudii Alii and Paul Tillman Smith join us to talk about the music, of course, but also a wonderful music series in two Oakland resturants. The Wednesday & Sunday, Jazz Jams sessions are free and open to professional musicians to sit in on and play. www.chumpchange.com

The Village of Peace (SFJFF 2014) tells the story of the Hebrew Israelites, African Americans who moved from America to establish a home in Israel.Directors and producers join us this morning to close the show: Ben Schuder, Director/Producer and his brother Sam Schuder, Producer. www.villageofpeacemovie.com

We open with an interview with author, Doris I. Mangrum, whose A Soiled Identity: From Triumph to Tragedy and Back Again, tells the story of Darnell Cookson, former Marine and former felon as he rejoins society. However, this is not a typical rehabilitation story. Told in the protagonist's voice as if we were seated in his home one evening getting to know one another, we meet Darnell just as he arrives home from prison to new wife, new child and many relationships he has to restore, like that between he and his two older daughters by a prior marriage, and his kid brother who is making a bit too much money fast. Darnell tries to hold his head up when applications are rejected and interviews have no follow-up calls, but it is hard. Darnell's reentry is a community venture; each chapter ends with what Mangrum calls, "Choice Moments" where her audience gets to imagine a "what if?" In "Live Your Life," the reader is invited to learn from Darnell's experiences while we also gear up to participate in an "Idea Infusion," which per chapter is a way to make the returning veteran or prisoner feel welcome and supported (171). Visit https://www.facebook.com/LetsSaidiana

Musicians Damu Sudii Alii and Paul Tillman Smith join us to talk about the music, of course, but also a wonderful music series in two Oakland resturants. The Wednesday & Sunday, Jazz Jams sessions are free and open to professional musicians to sit in on and play. www.chumpchange.com

The Village of Peace (SFJFF 2014) tells the story of the Hebrew Israelites, African Americans who moved from America to establish a home in Israel.Directors and producers join us this morning to close the show: Ben Schuder, Director/Producer and his brother Sam Schuder, Producer. www.villageofpeacemovie.com

AmikaeylaGaston is a multiple-award-winning singer, international best-selling recording artist and cultural change catalyst working at the intersection between science and the arts - particularly music. As the Founder and Director of ICAHSI, the International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute, she travels the world as a cultural ambassador furthering surprising connections in unexpected places through the arts, activism, and advocacy.  Her Music As Medicine - Healing with an Artful Purpose programming - a multi-faceted therapeutic approach through music, movement, & theater modalities - has taken her around the world.  Special Concert: She is featured in a special performance with John Santos this Sunday, July 27, 2014, in Spirits Lifted:A Musical Celebration featuring John Santos and special guest Amikaeyla Gaston, Sunday, July 27th  3:00pm, EastSide Cultural Center, 2277 East 14th Street, Oakland, $15 at the door. 

Kristoff St. John is best known for his role on ‘The Young and the Restless’ but the actor has much more than “soap star” on his resume. The NAACP award winner is releasing a new documentary, “A Man Called God” that took 33 years to film. “A Man Called GOD” is a documentary that was written and produced by “The Young and the Restless” star Kristoff St. John. It explores the St. John family traveling from Los Angeles to India in search of God. The documentary itself took place in 1980, and what the family would soon uncover is that their quest would turn into something more devilish than one would think. http://buzzworthyradiocast.com/?p=316

Music: Amikaelya, John Santos, Sweet Honey in the Rock

AmikaeylaGaston is a multiple-award-winning singer, international best-selling recording artist and cultural change catalyst working at the intersection between science and the arts - particularly music. As the Founder and Director of ICAHSI, the International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute, she travels the world as a cultural ambassador furthering surprising connections in unexpected places through the arts, activism, and advocacy.  Her Music As Medicine - Healing with an Artful Purpose programming - a multi-faceted therapeutic approach through music, movement, & theater modalities - has taken her around the world.  Special Concert: She is featured in a special performance with John Santos this Sunday, July 27, 2014, in Spirits Lifted:A Musical Celebration featuring John Santos and special guest Amikaeyla Gaston, Sunday, July 27th  3:00pm, EastSide Cultural Center, 2277 East 14th Street, Oakland, $15 at the door. 

Kristoff St. John is best known for his role on ‘The Young and the Restless’ but the actor has much more than “soap star” on his resume. The NAACP award winner is releasing a new documentary, “A Man Called God” that took 33 years to film. “A Man Called GOD” is a documentary that was written and produced by “The Young and the Restless” star Kristoff St. John. It explores the St. John family traveling from Los Angeles to India in search of God. The documentary itself took place in 1980, and what the family would soon uncover is that their quest would turn into something more devilish than one would think. http://buzzworthyradiocast.com/?p=316

Music: Amikaelya, John Santos, Sweet Honey in the Rock

Rebroadcast from July 23, 2014. We open with an excerpt of a conversation with Professor KC Williams about a Hate Crime she experienced at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, North Carolina. To support: www.gofundme.com/Fight-the-Hate-in-NC 

Gerald Lenoir is the founding Executive Director and currently the Co-director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration founded in Oakland in 2006 to support fair and just immigration reform and to bring African Americans together with immigrant communities to fight for social and economic justice.   He is a founding steering committee member of the national Black Immigration Network, a co-founder of the Priority Africa Network in Oakland and a board member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. www.blackalliance.org

Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County (FL). She is Director of the Museum’s Maroon Study Center, and the New Image Project, a project dedicated to positive identity development of youth of color. She is the author of six books including the recent:  Obi: Seminole Maroon Freedom Fighter. Dr. Bireda is also an Alternate Commissioner for the Gullah-Geechee Historical Corridor. Visit http://www.maroonconsciousness.com/

Rebroadcast from July 23, 2014. We open with an excerpt of a conversation with Professor KC Williams about a Hate Crime she experienced at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, North Carolina. To support: www.gofundme.com/Fight-the-Hate-in-NC 

Gerald Lenoir is the founding Executive Director and currently the Co-director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration founded in Oakland in 2006 to support fair and just immigration reform and to bring African Americans together with immigrant communities to fight for social and economic justice.   He is a founding steering committee member of the national Black Immigration Network, a co-founder of the Priority Africa Network in Oakland and a board member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. www.blackalliance.org

Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County (FL). She is Director of the Museum’s Maroon Study Center, and the New Image Project, a project dedicated to positive identity development of youth of color. She is the author of six books including the recent:  Obi: Seminole Maroon Freedom Fighter. Dr. Bireda is also an Alternate Commissioner for the Gullah-Geechee Historical Corridor. Visit http://www.maroonconsciousness.com/

We open with an excerpt of a conversation with Professor KC Williams about a Hate Crime she experienced at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, North Carolina. To support: www.gofundme.com/Fight-the-Hate-in-NC 

Gerald Lenoir is the founding Executive Director and currently the Co-director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration founded in Oakland in 2006 to support fair and just immigration reform and to bring African Americans together with immigrant communities to fight for social and economic justice.   He is a founding steering committee member of the national Black Immigration Network, a co-founder of the Priority Africa Network in Oakland and a board member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. www.blackalliance.org

Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County (FL). She is Director of the Museum’s Maroon Study Center, and the New Image Project, a project dedicated to positive identity development of youth of color. She is the author of six books including the recent:  Obi: Seminole Maroon Freedom Fighter. Dr. Bireda is also an Alternate Commissioner for the Gullah-Geechee Historical Corridor. Visit http://www.maroonconsciousness.com/

We open with an excerpt of a conversation with Professor KC Williams about a Hate Crime she experienced at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, North Carolina. To support: www.gofundme.com/Fight-the-Hate-in-NC 

Gerald Lenoir is the founding Executive Director and currently the Co-director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration founded in Oakland in 2006 to support fair and just immigration reform and to bring African Americans together with immigrant communities to fight for social and economic justice.   He is a founding steering committee member of the national Black Immigration Network, a co-founder of the Priority Africa Network in Oakland and a board member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. www.blackalliance.org

Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County (FL). She is Director of the Museum’s Maroon Study Center, and the New Image Project, a project dedicated to positive identity development of youth of color. She is the author of six books including the recent:  Obi: Seminole Maroon Freedom Fighter. Dr. Bireda is also an Alternate Commissioner for the Gullah-Geechee Historical Corridor. Visit http://www.maroonconsciousness.com/

Today on the 100th Anniversary weekend of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Organization (UNIA), Professor Kimberly C. Williams shares with audiences a hate crime whe was subjected to and administrations response and punishment. Professor Williams teaches Sociology at a small, southern U.S. college. She has written about and studied race and gender dynamics throughout her career, including her undergraduate and graduate research on race in education. Her current research focuses include analyzing the portrayal of women and people of color in media and the contrapower harassment dynamic prevalent on college campuses. She is beginning a new career in public speaking and writing on feminism and race. She blogs for the Rebel Researchers Collective http://rebelresearchers.com/ 2014/06/08/death-by-a-million-papercuts-are-prestigious-degrees-really-worth-the-trouble/ on her personal blog, Radicalize Me! (http://wp.me/4cdDt) on Facebook at “Blackademia” (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blackademia/1388228314732814) and “Welcome to my Post-Racial Life” (https://www.facebook.com/ welcometomypostraciallife). Brother Aliki Nkrumah (Anthony Murphy) is Second 1st Assistance President General for the UNIA-AFL, Executive  Director  of Town Watch  Integrated Services for the City of  Philadelphia Neighborhood Organizations and Town Watch  Groups. We close with an interview with Thomas Simpson, Artistic Director of AfroSolo and participants this season:Stephanie Anne Johnson who performs Every Twenty Days:Cancer, Yoga and Me, Lance Burton who performs The Irrelevance of Being Relevant and Kurt Lamont Young will perform If God Wanted Me to Fly He Would Have Give Us Wings to Do So.

Today on the 100th Anniversary weekend of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Organization (UNIA), Professor Kimberly C. Williams shares with audiences a hate crime whe was subjected to and administrations response and punishment. Professor Williams teaches Sociology at a small, southern U.S. college. She has written about and studied race and gender dynamics throughout her career, including her undergraduate and graduate research on race in education. Her current research focuses include analyzing the portrayal of women and people of color in media and the contrapower harassment dynamic prevalent on college campuses. She is beginning a new career in public speaking and writing on feminism and race. She blogs for the Rebel Researchers Collective http://rebelresearchers.com/ 2014/06/08/death-by-a-million-papercuts-are-prestigious-degrees-really-worth-the-trouble/ on her personal blog, Radicalize Me! (http://wp.me/4cdDt) on Facebook at “Blackademia” (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blackademia/1388228314732814) and “Welcome to my Post-Racial Life” (https://www.facebook.com/ welcometomypostraciallife). Brother Aliki Nkrumah (Anthony Murphy) is Second 1st Assistance President General for the UNIA-AFL, Executive  Director  of Town Watch  Integrated Services for the City of  Philadelphia Neighborhood Organizations and Town Watch  Groups. We close with an interview with Thomas Simpson, Artistic Director of AfroSolo and participants this season:Stephanie Anne Johnson who performs Every Twenty Days:Cancer, Yoga and Me, Lance Burton who performs The Irrelevance of Being Relevant and Kurt Lamont Young will perform If God Wanted Me to Fly He Would Have Give Us Wings to Do So.