Personal Journeys

Interviews with individuals sharing their personal experiences and defining moments on their journey to work for social justice in the ways that they do. Sharing can include stories about people or experiences that were influential in forming their current social/political analysis and activism/solidarity at the individual, interpersonal, or macro level, as well as work/community accomplishments that were transformative for them on their journey. Interviews for episodes from this perspective can also include stories about how they’ve worked to interrupt and resist the impacts of internalized oppression to move toward liberation in consideration of their marginalized identities and/or how they have, from their places of privilege, sought to betray the systems that grant those privileges and work for liberation as well.

Personal Journeys

Stop Believing In Things That Don’t Believe In You: On Asymmetrical Vulnerability with Kwesi A. Robertson

Personal Journeys

The Power of Relationships and Lived Experiences with Sharman Spieser

2026

Personal Journeys

Boundless Awareness with Pooja Kothari

Pooja Kothari, Esq. begins her social justice origin story with memories of her father, who helped cultivate her abilities to think critically as a child, her early awareness of sexism in gender-segregated cultural spaces, and her later experiences with racism and internalizing shame as a cis, queer, first-generation Indian-American woman of color. Recalling her experiences as a former public defender with the Legal Aid Society Criminal Defense Practice in Brooklyn, NY, Pooja reflects on how she became more courageous and a better advocate thanks to her mentors Michael Letwin and Azalia Torres, and explains how systemic racism shapes courtroom dynamics and even defenders’ assumptions in ways that can make or break client outcomes. 

She also talks about her relationship with resisting internalized oppression through finding community and “depersonalizing” oppressive messaging, while also resisting internalized patterns of power through developing practices of accountability and self-correction. This journey informs her work as the founder and principal facilitator of Boundless Awareness, where she develops and facilitates anti-oppression and anti-bias curriculum for workplaces and organizations.

Pooja’s storytelling reminds listeners that their activism can start today by identifying and challenging their assumptions.  

April 1, 2026
Personal Journeys

Look For Hope Everywhere With William “Bill” Vanderwill

Reflecting on his 50-year career as a Social Worker, William “Bill” Vanderwill speaks on the importance of strengths-based practice, intergenerational communication, community organizing, and the grassroots power of everyday people taking actions for social justice. 

Listen in to hear insights from the man I affectionately call “the Fred Rogers of Social Work.”

March 18, 2026

2025

Personal Journeys

Humanizing Our Neurodivergence: Lessons of Love From The People’s Platypus with Sheldon Gay

Sheldon Gay shares his journey of late identification as gifted and neurodivergent, which fostered his commitment to humanizing Black, gifted, and otherwise neurodivergent experiences to promote acceptance and self-love. Through his podcast ‘I Must Be Bug’N,’ Sheldon aims to dismantle the pathology associated with labels and celebrate the strengths and challenges, what he terms “the ‘cape and the kryptonite” of neurodivergent people. 

Sheldon advocates for narrative change and more compassionate storytelling about neurodivergence, reminding listeners that labels don’t have to feel like pathology.

October 29, 2025
Personal Journeys

Reimagining Leadership and Finding Our Role in The Movement with Beca Velázquez-Publes

Beca Velázquez-Publes, Founder, Coach & Consultant at The Liberated Leader, opens up about the lessons she learned early on from her parents that made working for social justice a part of her DNA. She talks about the evolving nature of purpose and how her work with the Urban Core Collective solidified her social justice journey, allowing her to build a space that resisted norms in the nonprofit space and push collective growth edges to test new ways of being for work and in community.  

Beca also talks about the significance of operationalizing equity and creating inclusive and human-centered organizational structures, the ongoing process of unlearning internalized oppression, and invites listeners to embrace their own leadership among the many ways to contribute and find community in the work for Liberation.

September 3, 2025
Personal Journeys

Marching to the Beat of Your Own Drum: Finding Your Rhythm with Chinyere Neale

Chinyere Neale reflects on a time in her life when the frustration she often felt toward well-meaning but uninformed white people who considered themselves allies in racial justice work became a mirror for her own growth. After attending an LGBTQIA+ ally training at work one day, she came to a humbling realization that she also had the capacity to be well-meaning but uninformed in a different way. The experience expanded her understanding of privilege and oppression, and influenced her approach to life as a “never-ending classroom”.

As a retired global public health educator from Detroit with a multifaceted career, Chinyere reflects on her upbringing in segregated Detroit, her passion for music and the arts, her role as a sexual health educator, and what led her to finally embrace being seen as a teacher. Her storytelling speaks to the importance of authenticity, keeping joy a priority in movement work, and remembering that we all have a role to play in working for social justice.

July 23, 2025
Personal Journeys

Using Intergroup Dialogue as a Catalyst for Social Justice with Kelly Maxwell

Kelly Maxwell reflects on how coming out as a lesbian in the 1990s sparked a deeper examination of her whiteness and a lifelong commitment to understanding her relationship to privilege and oppression. She traces her journey from growing up in an almost exclusively white small town in Ohio to dedicating 17 years to social justice education through intergroup dialogue at The Program on Intergroup Relations at the University of Michigan. Kelly also shares stories from her family life as part of a multiracial, interracial, two-mom household, and how those dynamics shape her personal and professional values on justice. She speaks candidly about the tensions of institutional “neutrality,” and how she works to align her values with her responsibilities on campus and in her role as Board Chair of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center, a nonprofit that supports colleges and universities in using dialogic practice to create transformational change in the pursuit of equity and justice.

June 25, 2025
Personal Journeys

Do The Hard Thing: Confronting Our Privilege as a Path to Justice with Angie Freeman

After narrowly avoiding a car accident in a parking lot one day, Angie Freeman (they/them) reflects on how that experience, and their initial reaction in the moments before and after learning the other driver was Deaf, expanded their awareness of their unexamined privilege. The experience set them on a path to learn American Sign Language (ASL), learn more about the lived experiences of Deaf people, and sparked a journey of self-work to more deeply understand how privilege operates. This journey continues to inform their life and work today as a speaker and educator.  

Angie also shares an example from their experiences as a Black, trans, and nonbinary parent that speaks to the importance of teaching children the expansiveness of gender identity and family structures from a young age. 

Their storytelling invites us to start with ourselves, to focus on deconstructing the misinformation that’s reflected through our privileged identities, and to use the power we have in service of equity and justice.

June 11, 2025
Personal Journeys

Follow Your Innate Sense of Justice with Emely Medina-Rodríguez

Dr. Emely Medina-Rodríguez, a social researcher and program evaluator committed to equity and culturally responsive practices, shares the story of her journey from Puerto Rico to Chicago and the events that inform her practice and activism as a researcher. Her storytelling teaches listeners about the need to challenge extractive traditional research practices that don’t prioritize the needs of communities, and to have a power analysis be “part of the equation” in research and evaluation.  

April 16, 2025
Personal Journeys

Education as an Act of Faith with Keith Edwards

Reflecting on significant learning experiences that have shaped his approach to social justice, speaker, author, and coach Dr. Keith Edwards describes education as an act of faith; investing time in cultivating the necessary relationships required to do the work with the belief that we’re making an impact even if we are not around to witness the outcomes. Speaking from the perspectives of someone who has been invested in and someone who invests that time in others, his storytelling speaks to the importance of unlearning dominant messages of superiority, cultivating critical hope, and understanding the collective damage caused by systems of oppression.

April 2, 2025
Personal Journeys

Bloom Where You’re Planted with Claire Downing

Claire Downing, Founder and Principal at The Moonlight Collaborative, shares a story of how witnessing her parents’ activism and the ways they navigated differences as an interfaith family shaped her own commitment to activism; paving the way for her to be able to develop a commitment to continually understand and embrace the complexities of her identities and relationship to privilege and oppression later in life as a white Muslim woman who converted to Islam. Claire also recalls how experiences in toxic workplaces ultimately led her to establish The Moonlight Collaborative, where she partners with organizations that are invested in “creating the conditions for marginalized folks not only to survive, but thrive.” 

Her storytelling invites listeners to reflect on their own identities and strengths and to identify their unique place within the social justice ecosystem to drive lasting change.

March 19, 2025