Release Date: February 11, 2019
​Length: 50:42 
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Episode 48: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded
with Joy Messinger

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence hands us a sharp critique of the toxic role that the non-profit industrial complex can play in managing our movements in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, published in 2007. 

​Monica and Page talk with Joy Messinger, a queer disabled femme organizer, former Program Officer at Third Wave Fund, and currently the Director of Training and Leadership at Funders for Justice. 

Key Questions: What is the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC)? How does a nonprofit status and grants impact the work of community organizations? What are examples of fundraising strategies that resist the NPIC? How can we build movements outside the non-profit model?
 
Release Date: February 4, 2019
​Length: 51:00 
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Episode 47: Green is the New Red
with Brad Thomson

​In the U.S., it’s becoming increasingly popular to “go green” in our daily lives under capitalism. However, there’s a whole other movement of eco-consciousness and activism that is being heavily criminalized. In Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement under Siege, independent journalist Will Potter provides detailed accounts of the targeting of environmental and animal rights activists across the country.

Monica and Page talk with Brad Thomson, a radical lawyer at the People’s Law Office, which has a history steeped in defending the rights of Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party. 

Key Questions: What was the Red Scare? And the new Green Scare? How was the word “terrorism” weaponized in the Green Scare? How did corporations and lobbyists create this hysteria for governments and law enforcement to target eco/animal rights activists? 
 
Release Date: January 14, 2019
​Length: 50:48
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Episode 46: Fascism Today
with Kelly Hayes

What does fascism look like today in the U.S.? Where does the alt-right fit into this? How can it be fought?!

​Monica and Page sat down with Kelly Hayes, Chicago-based Native abolitionist organizer, co-founder of Lifted Voices, podcast host of Movement Memos, and Truthout writer, to discuss Shane Burley's Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It. 

Key Questions: What is fascism? What is the alt-right? What do the building stages of a grassroots fascist movement look like? What does the left need to do defeat fascism?
 
Release Date: December 24, 2018
​Length: 45:37
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Episode 45: Making the Second Ghetto
with Lynda Lopez

Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago 1940-1960 by Arnold Hirsch is considered a premier text on the subjects of housing and displacement. However, at about 382 dense & jargon-filled pages, it can be a bit intimidating. Here to offer a helpful summary is Lynda Lopez, life-long Chicagoan, writer, co-founder of Transportation Equity Network, and neighborhood organizer.

Key Questions: What were the "concepts and devices" of racial segregation that Chicago pioneered? What was the role of universities in the "making of the second ghetto?" How are the policies and practices still active today?
Release Date: December 17, 2018
​Length: 44:53
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Episode 44: the Battle of Lincoln Park
with Daniel Kay Hertz

A hyper-local conversation: Who knew that the Chicago neighborhood 'Old Town' was actually part of Lincoln Park? Who knew it was a site of transformation, displacement, resistance, gentrification, AND urban renewal?

​Monica and Page sat down with author and policy analyst Daniel Kay Hertz to talk about his new book, The Battle of Lincoln Park: Urban Renewal and Gentrification in Chicago, published by Belt. 

Key Questions: Is physical displacement an essential part of gentrification? What are early warning signs of gentrification? What does gentrification or urban renewal look like when it’s driven by individuals versus institutions?
 
Release Date: July 4, 2018
​Length: 45:50 
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Episode 43: The New Jim Crow
with Patrice Daniels

Monica has a phone conversation with dear friend, poet and incarcerated activist, Patrice Lumumba Daniels, currently serving life without parole in IDOC for a crime he committed at 18 years old. Patrice and Monica talk about one of his favorite books, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.  

Banned from prisons in North Carolina and Florida, The New Jim Crow dives deep into the ways that the U.S. Government has created a new, contemporary system of racial control through the prison system. 

Key Questions: How does Michelle Alexander use data to prove Jim Crow has simply been redesigned? What is the "War on Drugs", when did it come into fruition, and how did it affect Black communities? How does this book talk about mass incarceration different from other books?

Write to Patrice! Let him know what you thought of the conversation, or just say hello and that you appreciate him: Patrice Daniels #B70662, Joliet Treatment Center, 2848 W. McDonough Street, Joliet, IL 60436
 
Release Date: February 26, 2018
​Length: 1:08:45
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Episode 42: Black Reconstruction in America
with Frank Chapman

Monica and Page revisit Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois, this time with Frank Chapman, a community organizer, Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, and former political prisoner. Tune in to hear Frank’s take on Du Bois and the social, economic and political changes that were taking place leading up to and through Reconstruction.

And in case you missed it, you can check out Page's conversation on Black Reconstruction in America with Chicago-based organizers Nathan Ryan and Debbie Southorn in Season 1, Episode 2.

Key Questions: How did anti-blackness evolve during Reconstruction? What is communism? Why is this book so important for organizers to read?
 
Release Date: February 5, 2018
​Length: 1:02:04
Sound Tech: Sarah Lu
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Episode 41; LIVE: Occupied Territory
with Simon Balto and Toussaint Losier

In this episode, Monica and Page bring you the Lit Review LIVE from Hairpin Arts Center, the site of For the People Artists Collective’s city-wide exhibition, Do Not Resist? 100 Years of Chicago Police Violence.

Monica and Page chatted with Simon Balto and Toussaint Losier, two radical authors and professors, about Simon’s upcoming book, Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power, coming out in the fall of 2018. ​In this history of Chicago from 1919 to Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Simon breaks down the racially repressive policing that occurred in Black neighborhoods as well as how Black citizen-activists challenged that repression.

Key Questions: Can both of you talk about Red Summer in Chicago? How does the Chicago Police Department historically play a role in enforcing anti-Blackness in housing developments?  Which stories are most hidden that you wish were told more?
 
Release Date: January 29, 2018
​Length: 51:22
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Episode 40: Rethinking the American Prison Movement
with Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier

Monica and Page sat down with authors Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier to chat about their latest book, Rethinking the American Prison Movement, which provides a short and accessible overview of the transformational and ongoing struggles against America's prison system. 

From forced labor camps of the 19th century, to rebellious protests of the 1960's, to the rise of mass incarceration, this book is for anyone interested in the history of American prisons and the struggles for justice still echoing today.

Key Questions: How do incarcerated people continue to resist on the inside with increased repressions? How has the function of prison changed over time? What are the various shapes that prisoner resistance has taken post-1980s?
 
Release Date: January 22, 2018
​Length: 57:34
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Episode 39: Kuwasi Balagoon
with Jason Lydon

So often we hear anarchy equated with chaos and collapse: a complete breakdown of society. Monica and Page sat down with activist Jason Lydon to help us understand what anarchy is and isn't. They define terms, talk through principles, and take seriously the anarchist vision for collective liberation. To help ground this conversation, we talked about Kuwasi Balagoon: A Soldier's Story.

Kuwasi was a member of the Black Liberation Army who escaped prison twice prior to being arrested following a failed Brink's expropriation in 1981. He died in prison of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1986. A Soldier's Story is the first ever collection of his writings.

​Key Questions: What is anarchism? Who was Kuwasi and how did he understand struggle and liberation? How does Black Lives Matter and other current identity-based struggles connect to the anarchist tradition? How do anarchists think about the relationships between land, decolonization, and identity?