How We Breathe: Recent Episodes
Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity
How We Breathe will share intimate conversations with organizers from around the nation, looking into power centers of movements for justice in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, and Jackson, Mississippi. We explore how young leaders are building on the legacy of Black resistance while finding new political tactics to meet this moment. We reflect on powerful gatherings that reveal how we see the past, present and the future - sometimes differently. We share the rituals, practices, and ancestors that have carried us forward. Listen as we breathe.
Picking up on our conversation around building modern reparation movements, our discussion with Edgar Villanueva and Nat Chioké Williams sparks ideas about the meaning of restitution and healing and its connection to movements for liberation. We also dive into politics and power within institutions funding Black and Indigenous-led movements and about pain points for progressive leaders working in these spaces.
In this special episode, BOLD’s Jonathan Stith speaks with Richard Wallace, Executive Director of Equity and Transformation Now and our first guest in Season 1, to get his take on reparations for the War on Drugs in Chicago and other strategies for reparative justice in the US.
We also connect with podcast Producer Nyasha Laing about her time at the UN Permanent Forum on Afrodescendant Persons, where reparations was central on the agenda. We highlight these urgent discussions and local developments to advance reparations as food for thought for those building power in communities seeking justice, equity, and liberation.
This episode takes us along the life path of Ife Kilimanjaro, Ph.D, the Spirit-Healer-Warrior, Climate Activist, scholar, and Writer who is currently serving as the Co-Executive Director of Soul Fire Farm, the BIPOC-centered community farm located in upstate New York that uses organic and ancestral farming techniques to combat racism and injustice in the food system.
In this episode, Ife - a native of Detroit now living in the South - speaks about her work to build spaces that can nourish and can support the wholeness of people. Through her story, we explore a deepening relationship with self and land. We learn how moving across all the places we call home can strengthen our voice and ultimately bring us closer to our purpose and more enlightened paths to liberation.
How We Breathe is narrated by BOLD National Trainer, Jennifer Toles.
**How We Breathe Returns!
In this episode of season 2, Jonathan Stith, National Field Organizer for BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) and a host of How We Breathe, welcomes us back to the show and shares more about the work BOLD has been engaged with for the past several months. Jomo has recently returned from BOLD’s new land in rural Georgia and where he co-led a training of over 30 Black lead organizers and directors - focusing on BOLD’s three critical domains: transformative organizing, political education, and embodied leadership. He gives us a sneak peek of upcoming episodes.**
How We Breathe invites social justice organizers from across the nation to reflect on powerful gatherings of the past to explore new political tactics for modern Black resistance. Our hosts and guests share the ancestors, practices, and rituals that inspire their work and leadership.
This podcast is powered by the nonprofit Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD).
Jonathan Stith, National Field Organizer for BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) and a host of How We Breathe, welcomes us back to the show and shares more about the work BOLD has been engaged with for the past several months. Jomo has recently returned from BOLD’s new land in rural Georgia and where he co-led a training of over 30 Black lead organizers and directors - focusing on BOLD’s three critical domains: transformative organizing, political education, and embodied leadership. He gives us a sneak peek of upcoming episodes.
How We Breathe invites social justice organizers from across the nation to reflect on powerful gatherings of the past to explore new political tactics for modern Black resistance. Our hosts and guests share the ancestors, practices, and rituals that inspire their work and leadership.
This podcast is powered by the nonprofit Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD).
Our first episode of the year features the dynamic leader Santra Denis, Executive Director of the Miami Workers Center an organization building equity for Miamians. Santra's personal story takes us back to pivotal moments in the crisis in Haiti and roots us in the linked spiritual and political futures of Black people across the diaspora. She calls us to stand in the gap with communities fighting against their erasure in the face of displacement, public health crises, and climate change.
The voice of Marcus Garvey grounds us in this episode.
Season 2 of How We Breathe opens with our first host -- facilitator, healer, and coach -- Aduka Utah, as she takes us on a journey with Yamani Yansa Hernandez. Yamani is a visionary leader serving in the social sector at neighborhood, city, state, and national levels for over 25 years. Currently coaching leaders with the Management Center, Yamani was the first Black executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds building systems and networks to withstand the moment in which we find ourselves.
In this episode, Yamani challenges us to think about the complexities of bodily sovereignty. We explore personal resilience, the arc of relationships, and our capacity to become fully autonomous yet interconnected beings seeking liberation together.
Jonathan Stith, National Field Organizer for BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) and a host of How We Breathe, welcomes us back to the show as he shares the upcoming themes of the podcast: bodily autonomy, care, sovereignty, safety, sovereignty, safety, and our “maroon” land.
How We Breathe invites social justice organizers from across the nation to reflect on powerful gatherings of the past to explore new political tactics for modern Black resistance. Our hosts and guests share the ancestors, practices, and rituals that inspire their work and activism.
Looking into power centers of social justice movements, the podcast has featured organizers with Southern roots and those working in the South. This podcast is powered by the nonprofit Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD).
In this episode, we speak with Rukia Lumumba, Executive Director of the People's Advocacy Institute in Jackson, Mississippi. Lumumba's worldview is shaped by revolutionary struggles for equal rights, self-determination, and community healing. She is the daughter of the late Chokwe Lumumba - the radical attorney and Black nationalist leader who served two terms as Mayor of Jackson. In her work, she is molding a vision of community-led governance, justice and transformation born from these legacies.
In this episode, Zach Norris, the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the author of Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons and Punishment, shares his story. Born and bred in Oakland, California and trained as a lawyer, Zach shares personal insights on collective efforts to dismantle California's oppressive carceral system. We hear challenges and victories over 20 years organizing inside and outside of California prisons and working with youth, families and lawmakers. He centers a deep commitment to his hometown and a vision of love, liberation, and healing over fear and criminalization.
In this episode, we hear from Kandace Montgomery, co-founder of Black Visions Collective, a group working to shape a political home for Black people across Minnesota since 2017. Kandace shares her pathway to organizing as well as the challenges and pitfalls of being thrust into the limelight as a young organization. She tells us of her experience organizing around the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and where she and Black Visions are headed in the future. We also hear from police misconduct attorney, abolitionist, and organizer, Andrea Ritchie.
In this episode, we hear from Richard Wallace, a Chicago native and organizer with Equity and Transformation (EAT), working with system-impacted individuals in the informal economy. He shares his journey, from incarceration to poetry to leadership. We gain insight into how young Chicago leaders like Richard, Fresco Steez and Charlene Carruthers are building on the legacy of Black freedom fighters like Mama Akua and Fred Hampton - while finding new political tactics to meet this moment.
On the first episode, we hear from Jonathan Stith, National Field Organizer for BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity), as he gives as a preview of this upcoming podcast.
How We Breathe will share intimate conversations with organizers from around the nation, looking into power centers of movements for justice in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, and Jackson, Mississippi. We explore how young leaders are building on the legacy of Black resistance while finding new political tactics to meet this moment. We reflect on powerful gatherings that reveal how we see the past, present and the future - sometimes differently. We share the rituals, practices, and ancestors that have carried us forward. Listen as we breathe.