What is mental health? How can we be more whole and how can we advocate for systems that help all of our community members heal? In this episode, we look at mental health with two practitioners -- Iresha Picot and Jacqui Johnson. Listen to their conversation that ranges from trauma to mental health crisis response to hip-hop. Learn about the policy changes that could make city services more just and what we all need to be well.

How can we truly understand Life Without Parole without knowing its impact on the families and communities of those who are condemned?  In this episode, we look at the sentence through the eyes of Patricia Vickers.  She shares about her complicated struggles as the mother of a son who's been condemned to life in prison.  Learn about the growing movement for second chances that gives her hope and keeps us fighting to end Death By Incarceration.

As much as “mass incarceration” and “criminal justice reform” have become common terms in American vernacular, one would think we know pretty-much all there is to know about them. In Episode 5, we dig into an important part of the criminal legal system — Commutation and the Board of Pardons. Hear from Naomi Blount-Wilson, a woman who spent 37 years in Pennsylvania’s prison system on a sentence to life without parole. Now she’s free and a voice of hope for many. We also hear from Lily Rorick, an organizer in the campaign to change the commutation process, about what ordinary people have been doing to Move It Forward.

With everything we’re confronted with, we recognize the need to look through different sets of eyes.  In this episode, we take a look through the lens of Black Feminism.  Join us for a rich conversation on the subject with some powerful thinkers in our society — Mandisa More-O’Neal, Tiyi Morris, Erica Perry, and Kris Henderson.  Nikki Grant also joins us as co-host, helping to lift up Black Feminism as another way for seeing and being in our struggles for a better world.

The same day our last episode on defunding the police went live, Walter Wallace was gunned down by police in front of his mother and community members.  In this episode, we dive deeper into the need to redirect funds from the police and towards our communities, with a greater sense of urgency.  We continue the conversation with Hiram Rivera, Director of Philadelphia’s Community Resource Hub, and are also joined by Kris Henderson, Executive Director of the Amistad Law Project.  

One might think that communities of color, who are disproportionately on the receiving end of police violence, are on the same page about defunding the police.  But, that is not the case.  Black and Brown communities are caught between violence from police and from community members.  Many want the police to be defunded, while others are not in favor.  In this episode, we sit down with Councilmember Kendra Brooks to flesh out what defunding the police really means.  We also highlight the words of Hiram Rivera, Director of Philadelphia’s Community Resource Hub, who will be featured more in the following episode next month.  Check out Part 1 of this brave and important conversation.

COVID-19 has been affecting us all, but nobody feels it more than the 2.3 million people trapped behind prison walls.  In this first episode of the Amistad Law Project’s new podcast, our host Kempis ‘Ghani’ Songster explores the pandemic’s impact on incarcerated people in Pennsylvania, and the greater national and global context.  He is joined on the show by community advocates Regina Glass and Sandra Hill, Amistad’s Organizing Director Sean Damon, and Professor Rachel Lopez of Drexel University’s Kline School of Law.  Professor Lopez is the director of the Stern Community Lawyering Clinic, which recently collaborated with Amistad to publish the report “Pandemic in PA’s Prisons”.  This report laid the groundwork for much of the conversation you’ll hear on the show.