Grace Lee Boggs: Sister Revolutionary (Updated Encore)
On today’s program we honor the life and legacy of civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs (June 27, 1915 – October 5, 2015). Through the lens of the documentary film American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs we present a close and personal view of Boggs’ activism. The film plunges us into Boggs’ lifetime of vital thinking and action, traversing the major U.S. social movements of the last century; from...
I Am Not Your Negro: James Baldwin
Master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, Remember This House. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin’s original words and flood of rich archival material. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in...
Remembering Fred Hampton (Encore)
This episode originally aired in 2019. Our radio adaptation of the film, The Murder of Fred Hampton, produced by filmmakers Mike Gray and Howard Alk, provides a glimpse into the life of Hampton and the Illinois Black Panther Party. On December 4th, 1969, exactly 50 years ago, Black Panthers Fred Hampton, age 21, and Mark Clark, age 22, were shot to death by Chicago police. In an infamous moment in Chicago’s history and politics,...
Bayard Rustin: The Gay, Black Civil Rights Activist (Encore)
This episode has also been published as “Angelic Troublemaker: Bayard Rustin” and “Giving Bayard Rustin His Flowers” On today’s show, we take a look at the life and legacy of a central organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, Bayard Rustin. Rustin was an openly gay civil rights leader and a trusted advisor to labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This show first aired in June...
A Dream Remembered?: Martin Luther King Jr and the Grassroots Civil Rights Movement (ENCORE)
On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th 1963, at the March on Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered one of the most famous speeches of all time. But it nearly didn’t happen. On this special edition of Making Contact, Gary Younge, author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream, talks about Martin Luther King Junior’s “Dream” and the story behind it. Special thanks to the New School...
The Cost of Deportations | 30th Anniversary Capsule
About two million Guatemalans live in the US. But, half of those here lack legal status, and tens of thousands of Guatemalans are deported back to their country each year. Are the countries these migrants left prepared for an influx of returnees? This episode, originally released in 2018, is part of the Making Contact Anniversary Capsule: celebrating 30 years of social justice journalism. The miniseries takes us from protests on the...
