Champions of the Lost Causes: Recent Episodes
Champions of the Lost Causes
What makes us take up causes others think are impossible? What draws others to the cause, bonds us together and gives us an inexhaustible energy and an unwavering belief that we'll succeed? Host Marvin Stockwell draws on his own experiences and talks to fellow Champions about the successes, setbacks and team dynamics that move a cause forward.
People champion all sorts of causes, but the uber-cause that we can sometimes miss is that of our own precious lives. This is where Jen Frank uses her gifts as a career and life coach to help the people she coaches. Our lives and how we make contributions in the world is a multi-faceted equation in which we balance the things we yearn for with other competing priorities. Jen helps people get unstuck and on to living lives of deeper fulfillment.
IOBY is a crowdfunding site that helps people make positive changes in their communities. We discuss how Erin and her founding partners discovered their niche in helping smaller neighborhood-level actors make change. We also chat with Dawn about her development from being a project leader in Cleveland to her role as IOBY's Place-Based Strategies Manager, with national responsibilities.
Svitlana Muzychenko, founder of UA Brokers Without Borders, works with Ukrainian grassroots organizations to address emerging humanitarian needs that stem from the ongoing war with Russia. We’ll discuss Svitlana’s early life in Ukraine, how she moved to Brazil and started her own technology firm, and how she has used her professional skills and network to help her fellow Ukrainians survive.
Mia Henley is the executive director of Creative Aging, a nonprofit that makes music and arts programming more accessible to older adults in Memphis. Everyone needs community to live a healthy, fulfilled life, but family and work connections often fall away as we age. The arts have the transformative power to build skills, confidence and community, and in doing so, the arts can improve physical and emotional health among seniors.
McKrell Baier is the director of the BridgeUp, GiddyUp nonprofit program. Through her unique and compassionate approach to horseback riding and Equestrian sports, McKrell and her team work with children ages 11 to 18 to help them become more confident, responsible, empathetic and goal-oriented. With wealth and privilege often associated with Equestrian sports, McKrell is also working to make the sport more accessible to all through her free program.
Tina Sullivan, executive director of the Overton Park Conservancy, played a pivotal role in resolving the decade-long fight over the Memphis Zoo parking cars on the park's Greensward. Today's hard-fought wins are built on the activism of Overton Park's past, including the landmark Supreme Court court case in 1971 that kept Interstate 40 from bisecting the park. Tina's passion for the park's rich history is matched only by the excitement she has for the park's future, in which the Overton Park Conservancy will work with stakeholders at the Overton Park Shell, Metal Museum, the renovated golf course, Memphis Zoo and old growth forest to collaborate on future programming at one of Memphis' crown-jewel signature parks.
Media consolidation in the 1990s forced John Michael off the 96X airwaves in Memphis and on to a successful career in radio that included a stint at the vaunted KROQ in Los Angeles. John found that his varied experiences taught him a lot about what worked in radio. Those experiences also showed him how radio was broken and disconnected from the audiences it once served, and he began to think about how to reinvent it. John recently rebooted 96X and plans to involve the Memphis music community to make the station all it can be.
After cutting his teeth as a musician and producer in New York City, James Dukes (IMAKEMADBEATS) returned home to Memphis in 2011 to find a music scene that at first seemed stuck in the past. As he began to work with local artists, he discovered an eclectic and uniquely creative group of artists that would become the backbone of Unapologetic, a label and artist collective James founded and has since grown.
Nick Oyler is the Bikeway & Pedestrian Program Manager for the City of Memphis. When the push for bike lanes in Memphis resulted in early victories for the bike/ped movement and then gave way to the city’s initial buildout, Nick was away at college, grad school, then working in Germany. Following all that news from afar, Nick thought that he might have missed his moment to get involved. But as many multifaceted causes require, there was plenty of work left to be done when he got back to his hometown. Nick’s experience of riding a bike when he was young helped pave the way for his interest in city planning and to his current role, and helped him see the many benefits to cities and people of having a well-designed system of bike lanes and walkways. Memphis has come a long way, but it still has a lot of work ahead of it.
Roshun Austin and Quincy Jones of the Works Inc., are working to rebuild, restore and renew families and where they live by focusing on housing, economic development and social services. With the recent merger with Neighborhood Preservation Inc., the Works has strengthened an already strong partnership and is now capable of doing more to advocate for the needs of residents, and ambitious plans are underway to renovate and reopen Northside High School.
Eric Barnes is the CEO and publisher of the Daily Memphian, an online daily news outlet launched in 2018. The global decline of the daily print newspaper meant the decline of the Commercial Appeal, Memphis' legacy paper. The Daily Memphian was a response to that decline, and as the paradigm shift in journalism continues, the Daily Memphian continues to adapt to find a funding model to support its part of the city’s independent press. The Daily Memphian is part of Memphis' unique media ecosystem, and the benefits of competition with the Commercial Appeal and other outlets, have been a boon to news consumers.
In 2000, Christopher Reyes founded Live From Memphis, a website that showcased the city's burgeoning music, film, and art scenes. The site gave artists new tools and ways to connect that bigger social media platforms had not yet built. It galvanized collaboration and helped grow community among artists. Always ahead of the technological curve, immersive multimedia art was next for Chris. In creating Baron Von Opperbean, an interactive art installation, he once again used storytelling to build community. In the future, Chris plans to introduce virtual and augmented reality dimensions to the Baron's story, a story he insists is more about the participants telling their own stories than it is about the Baron.
Panelists Isaac Daniel (Stax Music Academy), Elizabeth Cawein (Music Export Memphis), J.D. Reager (Back to the Light) discuss the past, present, and future of the Memphis music landscape. Each panelist has championed the cause of Memphis music in different ways.
Recorded live on Saturday, December 4th, 2021 at the Memphis Listening Lab inside Crosstown Concourse.
Many consider Mike McCarthy the godfather of independent film in Memphis, but in addition to his films, he has created comic books, graphic novels, sculptures, played in bands, and was the co-founder of the Coliseum Coalition, the grassroots group that worked to save Memphis' historic Mid-South Coliseum from the wrecking ball, and is now working to reactivate it. The common thread in all of Mike's work is a desire to make meaning and build culture through art.
Aaron Shafer led the grassroots effort to open Memphis' first public skate park in 2011. We discuss how his passion for the idea drew others to the cause and how they collaborated with the city of Memphis and the community to open the park. We also talk about his idea for a wave park and other civic projects on the horizon.
Jared Boyd is the program manager for WYXR, Memphis' newest community radio station, which grew from a germ of an idea and collaboration with others to now broadcasting diverse viewpoints and an eclectic mix of music from Crosstown Concourse in Memphis. Jared's experience as a journalist and DJ also helped him work with others to make the station what it has become in its first year.
Angela Barksdale's focus on improving Memphis' historic Orange Mound community has seen her produce events, lead campaigns, and advocate for the reopening of the dormant Mid-South Coliseum. She and others think the Coliseum could fit in with the City of Memphis' redevelopment of the city's fairgrounds, now known as Liberty Park, as a community asset that would enhance other efforts underway in Orange Mound.
Isabel Gonzalez-Whitaker worked with others to transform an underused Atlanta park into the Sara J. Gonzalez Memorial Park, a park renamed to honor her mother's trailblazing work and reflect the inclusive values her mother stood for and instilled in her. Working through grief after her mother's death became a labor of love that drew others to the effort in unexpected ways. The park now serves as a community gathering place that recognizes the contributions of Atlanta's Latinx community.
Trevor Clarke is executive director of Working Bikes, a Chicago-based nonprofit bicycle co-op that gives donated bicycles new life by redistributing them locally and globally - 10,000 bikes in Chicago and more than 100,000 across the globe since 1999. The organization's global focus has provided access to resources and opportunities that otherwise could have been out of reach - reducing waste and pollution, and improving people's health in the process.
Charlotte Tolley, founder and executive director of Nourish Knoxville started the Market Square Farmers Market in downtown Knoxville in 2004 when downtown wasn’t much to look at. The farmers market not only jump-started the revitalization of the city’s downtown, but it also led to the 2013 establishment of Nourish Knoxville, a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating healthy communities by supporting relationships between local farmers, producers, and the public. Early doubts gave way to momentum including the opening of additional markets and addressing new needs in the pandemic.
Victoria Jones is the founder and executive director of Tone, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering Black artists and communities and elevating Memphis as a global cultural beacon. Tone recently announced plans to team up with Unapologetic, a record label and artists collective, to convert the long-vacant United Equipment Building into Orange Mound Tower, a mixed-use development with a commitment to community ownership and equity. An artist in her own right, Victoria has become a vocal leader for change in the arts and in the wider Memphis community.
When the pandemic struck, Ellen Kuwana started the nonprofit We Got This Seattle to deliver meals to frontline medical workers. What began on instinct, serving people she saw who needed help, became more organized and systematic as she forged partnerships, accepted donations of food and money, worked with volunteers, and served more and more people. What makes people champion causes like she did? What sustained Ellen? And what she’s learned about interdependence, and the resiliency of the human spirit?
Protect Our Aquifer's opposition to the Byhalia Connection Pipeline has been front page news recently, but for the group's president, Ward Archer, advocacy for the Memphis Sand Aquifer goes back almost 20 years, to when he was working to stop a logging company from clear-cutting near the headwaters of the Wolf River and first learned of the aquifer. Respect for the aquifer's ancient origins and a desire to preserve its incredible drinking water are at the heart of why Ward and his group work to protect the aquifer from the encroachment of industry.
As co-host of the globally syndicated roots radio show, Beale Street Caravan, and with years of music industry experience under her belt, Pat Mitchell Worley brings a unique set of skills to her role as executive director of the Stax Music Academy. She also brings her perspective as a mother, a special love for expanding the horizons of children, and a confidence to ask “What if?” and “Why Not?” questions. That’s led to unique opportunities for the school, her students and Memphis. Leading the school through the pandemic has produced its own challenges and some unique opportunities.
Trey Elder, a longtime member of the Chicago music scene, founded Quiet Pterodactyl in 2019 to bring music and art into the community and provide equitable access for youth, but the pandemic forced him to change gears and serve Chicago in different ways, almost from the outset. SituationChicago, a compilation vinyl and digital album, has raised money and awareness about Chicago live music venues struggling to make it through the pandemic.
Elizabeth Cawein founded Music Export Memphis in 2016 to elevate the careers of Memphis musicians, to make Memphis a city of choice for musicians and other creatives, and to elevate Memphis’ brand as a contemporary music city. More recently, Music Export Memphis had to switch gears during the pandemic to fulfill its mission in different ways. Championing the cause of Memphis music didn’t start in 2016, though. Elizabeth cut her teeth at the Memphis Music Foundation’s resource center and founded her own music-only PR firm, Signal Flow PR, along the way.
A longtime friend and collaborator of mine, J.D. has a fairly new podcast, Back to the Light, which has already expanded into a podcast network, record label and more, but what set off this flurry of creative activity? On this show, my guests and I talk about why people champion causes and what sustains them, but there’s an uber cause in the background that we can overlook, and that’s championing the cause of our own precious life. Moving from Memphis to Chicago was a tough adjustment for J.D., and before he could get back to the light, he had to march through real darkness and face his fears. When he did, he found a new curiosity pulling him forward and a renewed confidence to try new things.
As co-founder and spokesman for the Coliseum Coalition, Marvin has worked with others for five years to reopen the beloved midsize venue. In 2016, he also co-founded Friends of the Fairgrounds, which conducted a yearlong stakeholder input process to determine what people wanted to see the wider Fairgrounds land parcel become. In the last two years, Marvin and his fellow Coliseum Coalition board members have worked closely with the City of Memphis on 90+ Coliseum tours for potential investors, two community clean-ups, and plans for revitalizing events inside the Coliseum.
Historic preservation architect and Coliseum Coalition vice president Chooch Pickard led an interdisciplinary team of experts to produce a physical assessment of the shuttered Mid-South Coliseum in 2016. That assessment found the building to be in excellent shape, and those findings were later corroborated by the City of Memphis’ own due diligence. Chooch brings to bear decades of experience restoring other landmark buildings in Memphis as he and his colleagues work with the City to reopen the Coliseum.
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Coliseum Coalition president Roy Barnes has been a vital part of the grassroots effort to reopen the classic midsize venue from its earliest days. Roy was a key figure in organizing the first Roundhouse Revival in 2015, as well as subsequent revivals and other revitalizing events. He developed the group’s business plan and has contributed other research that has steadily moved public opinion toward reopening the Coliseum.
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Mark Fleischer did something that seemed counterintuitive in our digital age, he started a print newspaper in 2018 called Storyboard Memphis. Since then, he’s published neighborhood-level news that was missing from the local media landscape before that, and he’s given digital-only outlets a way to get news out in print. Arts coverage and coverage of historic preservation have also found a home. Mark is a business entrepreneur, but also a champion of the causes he lifts up in his newspaper and on his Storyboard 30 radio show and podcast.
Through his non-profit film company, Memphis FilmWorks, Lakethan Mason creates socially relevant content that captures artistic expression, human connection and our shared humanity. In his new docuseries, Our Neighbors, Our Stories, he explores the art, life, history and culture of Memphis through the shared stories of Memphians. Lakethan lifts up unheard, often overlooked, voices and welcomes these neighbors to the wider community conversation.
Kyle Wagenschutz was a critical figure in growing and sustaining Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop in Memphis, alongside founder Anthony Siracusa. Together, the two shared a love for bikes and punk rock, and they found that each subculture played a role in helping them build community around bikes. Kyle advocated for bike lanes in Memphis, first from his perch at Revolutions, but then as the City of Memphis’ first bicycle/pedestrian coordinator. Anthony and Kyle’s effective “inside-outside” game showed what can happen when government and grassroots work together. The two friends’ partnership helped move Memphis from a “worst city for biking” to “most improved” and on to being a national leader in just six years. Now the Director of Local Innovation at PeopleForBikes in Boulder, CO, what Kyle learned through trial and error in Memphis is benefiting people in other cities.
Roshun Austin is working to keep Memphis housing affordable, even as Memphis’ growth accelerates. She and her team at the Works are working to ensure that Memphis’ momentum reaches all of Memphis, especially the neighborhoods that have been left out in the past, by focusing on housing, economic development and social services.
Britney Thornton founded Juice Orange Mound to develop and advance self-reliance In Orange Mound by building capacity and engagement among its citizens and businesses. What began as regular community meetings and door-to-door fundraising to fund projects has grown over time. Now, there is a growing confidence that neighbors are reclaiming the self-sufficiency and prestige of Historic Orange Mound. As Juice Orange Mound grows, there are now plans underway for a small business incubator and more.
From his perch as a public defender, Josh Spickler saw the limitations of the public defender's office… the enormous case load limiting how much time could be spent on each client and how bail practices and expungement costs were a disproportionate burden for the poor. His curiosity about how to address these issues led him to found Just City, which for five years has advocated for change and has racked up several significant wins.
Making bikes affordable to more people by founding Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop led Anthony Siracusa to bike advocacy work on the local, state and national level. In time, he saw the bike as only one lever to affect change among many. Anthony's doctoral studies at Vanderbilt deepened that knowledge by showing him the many Champions and their causes within the Civil Rights Movement. That led him to his current work at Colorado College, where he helps student better champion their own causes.
Asking "Wouldn't it be cool if...?"-type questions and getting the community to dream big was the start of re-imagining Memphis' blighted Sears distribution center. Seven years later, in August of 2017, the building was relaunched as Crosstown Concourse, a vertical urban village dedicated to healthcare, education and the arts. But it took more than dreaming from Todd and others to get to opening day, and it will take even more work for the building to fully live out its "better together" mantra and create the community impact everyone wants.
In pursuing the XQ Superschool grant and answering its charge to "reinvent high school," Ginger Spickler and a group of volunteers developed a vision that became Crosstown High, a place-based learning high school embedded in Crosstown Concourse in Memphis.