Airgo

On this bonus episode, listen to audio from an IG Live on 1/15, in which the guys break down the Behind the Scenes of their interview with the legendary Angela Davis. SHOW NOTES Become an AirGo Amplifier - airgoradio.com/donate Rate and review AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091 Check out another wonderful podcast, The Lit Review, hosted by Chicago organizers Page May and Monica Trinidad - www.thelitreview.org/ Intro contains audio from "Crooklyn," produced by Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest and was featured in the 1994 film.

Yup, it's real–we can't believe it either. The guys have the extraordinary privilege and honor of talking with legendary Black revolutionary Angela Davis. She discusses her experience this summer during uprising, the remarkable popularization of abolition, the significance of addressing gender violence and inequality in the fight for liberation, and much much more. Wow! SHOW NOTES Grace Lee Boggs and Jimmy Boggs - http://boggscenter.org/ Audre Lorde - https://alp.org/about/audre Fumbling Towards Repair - https://www.akpress.org/fumbling-towards-repair.html Creative Interventions toolkit - https://www.creative-interventions.org/tools/toolkit/ George Jackson - http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/rodneyjackson.html Attica Brothers - https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2011/sep/15/remembering-attica-forty-years-later/ Without Guarantees by Stuart Hall - https://www.google.com/books/edition/Without_Guarantees/MYcFKbUl0zkC?hl=en&gbpv=0 Frank "Big Black" Smith - https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/us

Each month this year, we're going to revisit an episode from the 260+ episodes in the AirGo Archives and bring that conversation back to the forefront. For the final #GoBack of the year, we're excited to share the first conversation we ever had on the air in Chicago, a week before the first official episode of AirGo. We tried to find our rhythm and played some songs we were bumping at the time. Check out this never-before-heard (except for live on the air) gem from the AirGo archives! SHOW NOTES Become an AirGo Amplifier - airgoradio.com/donate Rate and review AirGo - podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091

AirGo is excited to present The Notebook Suite, a series of conversations with writers about liberation, craft, and radical imagination co-curated by poet Nate Marshall. On this last episode of 2020, we get to learn from Elizabeth Mendez Berry. Elizabeth is an editor, writer, and funder who is currently the Vice President and Executive Editor of One World, an imprint of Random House in New York. She's also the cofounder of Critical Minded, an initiative supporting cultural critics of color, and the Unicorn Fund, which offers resources to artists and others who have been targeted for speaking out. We talk about the transformative potential of criticism, her experience as a music writer for VIBE, and much more. SHOW NOTES Jeff Chang - https://jeffchang.net/ Black Star Film Festival - https://www.blackstarfest.org/ Greg Tate - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-critic-who-convinced-me-that-criticism-could-be-art Karen Good Marable - https://twitter.com/kgoodmarable Toni Morrison - https:

Our movement has been fighting hard to #DefundPolice all year long! As we come to the end of 2020, the #DefundCPD Campaign hosted a celebration and discussion on December 16 at 6pm CT about the campaign so far, featuring #DefundCPD campaign organizers in conversation with abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba, and special guests from other defund police campaigns from the Midwest to the South. Follow the campaign: https://www.facebook.com/defundcpd Sign the demand to #DefundCPD if you haven’t already: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-on-to-demand-defunding-of-the-chicago-police-department Watch the whole event here: https://www.facebook.com/defundcpd/videos/200794354995963

AirGo is excited to present The Notebook Suite, a series of conversations with writers about liberation, craft, and radical imagination co-curated by poet Nate Marshall. On this episode, we have the pleasure of talking with Chicago legend, WBEZ journalist, and writer Natalie Y. Moore. The author of popular and necessary books The South Side, Almighty Black P Stone Nation, and Deconstructing Tyrone, Natalie talks about how she maneuvers complex responses to her work, how telling the story of segregation helped her report on the pandemic, and much more. Shoutout to our friends over at Scene On Radio, aPeabody-nominated podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Subscribe now: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scene-on-radio/id1036276968 SHOW NOTES The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation - https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250118332 The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of an American Gang - https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/al

AirGo is excited to present The Notebook Suite, a series of conversations with writers about liberation, craft, and radical imagination. We kick the series off by chopping it up with brilliant poet and suite co-curator Nate Marshall. Author of poetry collections Finna and Wild Hundreds, Nate is a longtime friend of the show and professor at Colorado College. He shares what he's wrestling with in his writing right now, as well as some questions for us to ask the folks we're going to be talking with throughout the suite. SHOW NOTES Coffee and Books with Marc Lamont Hill - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffee-and-books/id1522592619 The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America by June Jordan - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68628/the-difficult-miracle-of-black-poetry-in-america Phyllis Wheatley - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson - http://digitalemerson.wsulibs.wsu.edu/exhibits/show/text/the-american-scholar Jamila Woods

You're invited to an AirGo Listening Party with old friend, vocalist, and stellar human theMIND! A Philly native and longtime Chicagoan, he just dropped a gorgeous and soul-enriching new project entitled Don't Let It Go To Your Head. In the first edition of our new Listening Party series, we go through a few tracks on the album together and talk about his creative process, what he's wrestled with in his artistry and personal growth, and much more. Listen to the album: https://cinqreleas.es/yourhead SHOW NOTES Busy/Sirens by Saba x theMIND - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhE-fQU6P9U Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century by James and Grace Lee Boggs - https://www.google.com/books/edition/Revolution_and_Evolution/M6WSDwAAQBAJ Rate and review AirGo on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/airgo/id1016530091 Support AirGo with a monthly or one-time donation - https://airgoradio.com/donate

Climate Changemakers is a podcast series showcasing and celebrating leaders in equity work and climate action across Illinois, presented in celebration of the 20th anniversary of nonprofit organization Elevate Energy. On this eighth and final episode of Climate Changemakers, Dame and Daniel are joined by Olga Bautista of the Chicago Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke. In response to decades of pollution and environmental destruction by industry in her home neighborhood on the Southeast side of the city, Olga banded together with other community members to fight for environmental protections from and cleanup of Petcoke, a toxic byproduct of oil refinement that was poisoning the air she and her family were breathing. The coalition successfully fought the Koch brothers, who were forced to dispose of the petcoke in a less destructive manner. She talks about the devastation of industrial pollution, learning to collect the necessary data herself, the unique challenges of having a set at the redevelopment tabl

In the midst of a pandemic, Mayor Lightfoot is threatening to punish aldermen and the communities they represent if they do not vote for her racist and regressive budget. There is a lot to unpack, from Lori increasing the share of funding for the police department to her telling the Black Caucus that voting against her budget means they shouldn’t expect investment from the city for their wards, and so much more… and that ain't right! Listen to the audio from a Facebook Live conversation on Saturday, November 21st at 12pm between Kennedy from @uwfillinois, Damon from @letusbreathe773, Ald. Rossana Rodriguez, CTU's Stacy Davis Gates, Amika "Big Tree" Tendaji, and organizers from Good Kids Mad City spill the tea on Lori’s fake progressive, anti-Black budget. Stay tuned this week as we share more info on the folks who will be joining the conversation and ways to demand alderpeople vote no and #BootTheBudget! Sign up to phonebank or textbank to help #DefundCPD at bit.ly/2020Chibudget. #SpillTheTea #BootTheBu

On this bonus episode, we're partnering with our good friends over at the Chicago Community Bond Fund to share a collage of audio from a series of virtual townhalls hosted by the Coalition to End Money Bond. Recorded this fall, the conversations explored the different imperatives for ending money bail, and connected elected representatives with lawyers, organizers, and advocates who are leading the fight. SHOW NOTES Plug into the fight at http://endmoneybond.org Send a letter to you legislator in support of the Pretrial Fairness Act: bit.ly/pretrialfairnessletter Watch all three townhalls at the Coalition's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/endmoneybond/videos/ Chicago Community Bond Fund: https://chicagobond.org/

Each month this year, we're going to revisit an episode from the 260+ episodes in the AirGo Archives and bring that conversation back to the forefront. This month, we're revisiting one of the most impactful moments in modern social movement history–the encampment at Standing Rock in 2016. Kiss and a cohort of other Chicago folks brought supplies from Freedom Square in November, and had the privilege to spend a few days there. Upon their return, Kiss sat down with Kristiana Colon, who had been with him on the trip, to talk about the experience. The episode also features selections from the podcast Voices of Standing Rock, reproduced with the creator's permission. SHOW NOTES: Listen to all of Voices of Standing Rock: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-of-standing-rock/id1173368814 Get connected to Oceti Sakowin, a group that formed during the encampment and has led the fight for indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice: https://www.facebook.com/OcetiSakowinCamp

Unelectable is an live podcast event series that engages electoral politics through the filter of radical imagination. Come chop it up with us, imagine new worlds, and help us build our Unelectable platform! AirGo and Black Youth Project are using the 2020 election cycle to have tangible conversations about impactful issues dismissed as being too big or unrealistic by mainstream political media. We want to expose the tensions that come from engaging electoral work as a liberatory pathway, reconciling complex contradictions within our movements and communities. The third and final event in the series, taking place just a few days before the 2020 election, focuses on the liberatory potential of Abolition Democracy, and how the seeds of this future are being sowed today. The conversation is cohosted by brilliant organizer Asha Ransby-Sporn, and features State Senator Robert Peters, community builder Jay Travis (formerly of KOCO), and EAT Chicago founder Rich Wallace. SHOW NOTES DefundCPD campaign - https://www

On October 21st, Lori Lightfoot addressed Chicago and let us know where her priorities lie. She ignored 87% of Chicagoans that took the budget survey and instead advocated for increased police spending and ensured she allocated plenty of $ for her 13 press aides. After the CPD Budget Hearing on 10/29, join #DefundCPD organizers Kennedy (@uwfillinois) and Damon Williams (@damon_af) to break down all of Lori's budget tricks, learn about budget processes, and talk through how we collectively move forward during this budget cycle. NOTE: This is audio of an IG Live from 10/30/20 between Damon and Kennedy Bartley, the Legislative Director of United Working Families. Learn more about Kennedy here: https://www.unitedworkingfamilies.org/news/2019/8/25/meet-kennedy Join the #DefundCPD campaign: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-on-to-demand-defunding-of-the-chicago-police-department?source=direct_link&

Each month this year, we're going to revisit an episode from the 260+ episodes in the AirGo Archives and bring that conversation back to the forefront. This week, we're heading back to 2015 to talk with one of the best singers of we've ever heard. When 16 year-old Ravyn Lenae came up to the WHPK studio, she had recently released her first EP Moon Shoes, and it was becoming clear that she had an absurdly bright future that was becoming closer and closer. Since then, she's released multiple acclaimed projects, relocated to LA, signed to Atlantic Records, and toured the world. And she's still really nice to us, which we appreciate. SHOW NOTES Listen to her EP Crush here: https://www.ravynlenae.com/ Make a tax-deductible donation today and become an AirGo Amplifier: airgoradio.com/donate

Climate Changemakers is a podcast series showcasing and celebrating leaders in equity work and climate action across Illinois, presented in celebration of the 20th anniversary of nonprofit organization Elevate Energy. On this penultimate episode of Climate Changemakers, Damon and Daniel talk with artist, community builder, and Chicago gem Tonika Lewis Johnson. A lifelong Englewood resident, she helped co-found the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E), whose mission is to “mobilize people and resources to force positive change in Englewood through solution-based approaches." She is also a lead co-founder of the Englewood Arts Collective, established in 2017 to help artistically “reframe the narrative” of Englewood. Her Folded Map Project, which brings together "map twins" from opposite sides of the city, has been widely acclaimed as both an artistic project and a flashpoint in the fight against structural racism. She talks about the ways that the project has evolved, what she's learned from it

AirGo is excited to present The Education Suite, a collection of episodes focusing on the liberatory histories and futures of education. This suite is co-curated by AirGo fam and general genius Eve Ewing, a professor and poet whose work is at the forefront of public conversation around the ways our education system has harmed Black and Brown young people, and the ways that our school buildings connect to larger systems of inequity across the country. For the final episode of this suite, we check back in with Eve to discuss what we've learned. She brings some questions for the guys to make sure they were listening, shares some useful tips for your apocalypse knapsack, and fills us all with the warmth and introspection she is always sharing. SHOW NOTES Audre Lorde - https://alp.org/about/audre Parable of the Sower-inspired Go Bag - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hhrd4PO6Dr_N64AIe5BFzgz7jC782PnpF2r0QnV_CCk/edit?usp=sharing Pierre Bourdieu - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d_lp40IAAAAJ&hl=e

Recently, the guys very carefully and joyously headed to an isolated house in Wisconsin for a planning and decompression weekend with movement stalwarts and wonderful spirits Trina Reynolds-Tyler and Maira Khwaja. We turned the mics on toward the end of the weekend to talk about the last time the four of us hung out, what we learned, and some of what we're wrestling with. Find out more about Trina and Maira's work at http://www.tmproductions.org/

AirGo is excited to present The Education Suite, a collection of episodes focusing on the liberatory histories and futures of education. This suite is co-curated by AirGo fam and general genius Eve Ewing, a professor and poet whose work is at the forefront of public conversation around the ways our education system has harmed Black and Brown young people, and the ways that our school buildings connect to larger systems of inequity across the country. This episode features Janie Pochel, the cofounder and guiding force behind Chi-Nations Youth Council. The Council is a community organization that create a supportive open environment for Native youth to raise awareness of cultural identity and promote a healthy lifestyle through arts, activism, and education. She breaks down the lessons learned through land and place-based education, the necessity of Black and Indigenous solidarity, how modern schooling has been a genocidal tool, and how she cares for the youth she serves. SHOW NOTES Support the work of Chi-N

On the eve of Lori Lightfoot’s budget speech, Bella BAHHS (@bellabahhs) and Damon Williams (@damon_af) address the inherent violence within our political systems and discuss how defunding the police is a step toward getting our people and communities what they need. #DefundCPD #DefendBlackLives This audio is from an IG Live between Damon and Bella Bahhs. Follow her at http://instagram.com/bellabahhs. Plug into the campaign today! https://linktr.ee/defundcpd