Making Contact

On this edition of Making Contact, we’ll explore the aftermath of the Ghost Ship fire and the battle to preserve live/work spaces, and then we look at the San Pablo fire in Oakland California that displaced at least a hundred residents…many of whom are now living on the streets in tent encampments. Special Thanks to KALW and Jeremy Dalmas.

On this edition of Making Contact we go from Cape Town, South Africa to Los Angeles and Oakland, California— three cities grappling with evictions, displacement, and homelessness.

On this edition, we hear from Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Taylor most recently wrote, From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation. We’ll be sharing a talk with Dr. Taylor’s insights on Black Liberation as framed through this most recent election.

It was the 1960s – and throughout the United States, opposition to the War in Vietnam was growing.  The Draft forced young men to make a choice about their own participation in the war. And many chose to resist. On today’s Making Contact we look back at the resistance to the Draft to the War in Vietnam.  What form did that resistance take?  And what lessons are people bringing to building resistance to war and empire among soldiers today, in the absence of an official draft?  

On this edition of Making Contact, we present Dr. Ibram X. Kendi discussing his latest book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Stamped offers a deeply researched, provocative narrative that is a comprehensive history of anti-Black racist ideas—their origins, and how they became founding principles in our nation’s institutions.

On this edition of Making Contact, we present the final installment in a two-part series on the pressure to transform a region of iconic landscapes and environmental stewardship into a global center for shipping fossil fuels.

On this edition of Making Contact, we present the first in a two-part series on the pressure to transform a region of iconic landscapes and environmental stewardship into a global center for shipping fossil fuels.

Two of the longest running armed rebellions on opposites sides of the world, the FARC in Colombia and the NDFP in the Philippines are vying for peace but several elements-government, paramilitary, and drugs, make it all but impossible.

On this edition of Making Contact we look at some of the struggles and victories in the fight for transgender access to gender-specific spaces and programs.

Liberation Theology: A March to Freedom explores the conceptual framework of liberation theology. We will examine why Liberation Theology, with its focus on political activism, is resonating with communities hungry for social justice.

The Get on the Bus program provides support and free transportation for children and families throughout California to visit their mothers and fathers in prison. 

The Poetic Address to the Nation, brought together poets to speak powerfully against the current administration. Featuring Cam Awkward, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Michelle ‘Mush’ Lee,Chinaka Hodge, and many others. 

In this edition of Making Contact, we look at how workers are organizing outside of labor unions and where traditional labor could be headed.

Spies of Mississippi is a journey into the world of informants, infiltrators, and agent provocateurs in the heart of Dixie. Directed and produced by Dawn Porter and executive produced by LOOKS TV and Martina Haubrich. The film tells the story of a secret spy agency formed by the state of Mississippi to preserve segregation and maintain “the Mississippi way of life,” white supremacy, during the 1950s and ‘60s. The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC) evolved from a predominantly public relations agency to a full-fledged spy operation, spying on over 87,000 Americans over the course of a decade.

What would it take to have real choices about our bodies? Loretta Ross, co-founder of SisterSong breaks down the reproductive justice framework; and Tina Reynolds, co-founder and Chair of Women on the Rise Telling HerStory, shares how a group of formerly incarcerated women came together to fight for the right to give birth to and raise children in healthy and safe environments.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. On today’s show we’re exploring how some women have been dehumanized to the point of indifference. We’ll learn how one community is undoing the silence around the violence women of color face. We’ll also hear about how serial killers were able to hunt down mostly Black women for three decades in South Los Angeles. Then we’ll take you to the Yucatan where pregnant indigenous women struggle under a health care system failing to provide proper medical care. 

Panelists at the Media Consortium conference discuss the role independent media plays in today’s contentious media landscape.

Given Trump's massive military budget proposal and the 14th Anniversary of the United States war in Iraq, we bring you this program from our archives with the voices of U.S. Soldiers and Iraqis reflecting on the costs of war.

In this edition of Making Contact, we look at two major changes to statewide curriculum in California, and where schools nationwide may be headed under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Women Rising Radio profiles three healer activists, two M.D.'s and an indigenous healer/psychologist, caregivers for the Water Protectors at Standing Rock,  and witnesses to the violence of police, sheriffs and private security forces hired by Energy Transfer Partners  -  the fossil fuel giant building the Dakota Access Pipeline.