Korea: The Ghosts of the Gwangju Uprising (ENCORE)
On May 18, 1980, the people of Gwangju, South Korea came together for reunification and an end to an era of martial law imposed by U.S.-backed military dictators. Over the course of ten days, they staged mass protests, battled riot police and soldiers, and were met with brutal repression. Together, they successfully drove the military out Gwangju and governed the city together. Their actions changed the course of Korean history. On...
Special for Mother’s Day – Mothering: Love on the Front Lines
For Mother’s Day and everyday: listen to a discussion and poetry by women of color writers and editors of the anthology Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. They dedicate the book to “all the revolutionary mothers and all the revolutions they’ve created, because mothering is love by any means necessary.” You’ll also hear about a recent investigation into Black maternal and...
Protecting People and Water in Mexico City
Clean, fresh water is one of our most precious natural resources. This week Making Contact contributor Maria Doerr looks at what is being done to safeguard the watersheds of Mexico City— the natural water systems that provide water to one of the largest metropolises in the world. Image Caption: Water barrels in an indigenous community within the Water Forest. Some residents wait up to two weeks for water trucks to appear. Like this...
Specters of Attica: Reflections from Inside a Michigan Prison Strike
On September 9, 2016, prisoners across the U.S. went on strike. In Michigan’s low security Kinross prison, workers assigned to kitchen duties refused to report to their shifts. Hundreds gathered to protest in the prison yard. The strike spread like a prairie fire. Nationally, 24,000 prisoners participated, making it the largest prisoner labor strike in U.S. history. In this episode of Making Contact, four men who were imprisoned...
Daze of Justice
Via our adaptation of Michael Siv’s documentary, we hear the intimate story of trailblazing Cambodian-American women who break decades of silence, abandoning the security of their American homes on a journey back into Cambodia’s killing fields, only this time not as victims but as witnesses determined to resurrect the memory of their loved ones before the UN Special Tribunal prosecuting the Khmer Rouge. Only Daze of...
The Nakba, the Naksa, and the Future of Palestine
In 1948 Zionist militias expelled over 700,000 Palestinians from their villages and towns. The event, and the ongoing destruction and occupation of Palestine are referred to as the Nakba, “The Catastrophe.” How did the events of 1948 shape Palestine and its diaspora? And now, 70 years later, how are Palestinians fighting to return home? As news spreads of recent violence against Palestinian demonstrators calling for their right to...
