The Activist Files Podcast

Episode 59: Loving Corrections with adrienne maree brown: Transforming a Divided World

In this episode of the Activist Files, Communications Director Sunyata Altenor and Senior Legal Worker Leah Todd sat with New York Times bestselling author and activist adrienne maree brown. Informed by 27 years of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction and doula work, their new book Loving Corrections explores how we start to heal our divided country, world, and even our relationships based on making love-based adjustments and having honest conversations. adrienne tackles big ideas like race, patriarchy, and capitalism, and even the network of underground mycelium, and marries them with smaller intimate pieces from her heart. From how to create facilitated family check-ins to how nature can serve as a model for personal and collective transformation, this conversation pulls from the most creative and painful parts of the human experience to reimagine how humans connect across space and time. Speakersadrienne maree brown - New York Times bestselling author and activistModerators:Sunyata Altenor - Communications DirectorLeah Todd - Senior Legal Worker

Episode 58: Black August & The ongoing fight to end slavery

Black August began in the 1970s to mark the assassination of incarcerated political prisoners like the revolutionary organizer and writer George Jackson during a prison rebellion in California. Black August honors the freedom fighters, especially those inside the walls of our sprawling prison-industrial complex, who, with their vision, tenacity, and deep love for our communities, are leading us toward the horizon of abolition. The Center for Constitutional Rights is proud to be part of a rich legacy of inside-outside organizing to transform material conditions and build a world of collective safety without prisons, surveillance, and police.This Black August we bring to you an episode discussing the ongoing inside-outside organizing taking place to put an end to involuntary servitude in prisons or, more appropriately named, prison slavery. We are proud to represent incarcerated workers in Alabama as they seek to abolish forced prison labor, and we will continue to support them until slavery is banned everywhere, once and for all, in all its forms – not just in the law but in practice. Alabama is one of several states to join the growing movement to abolish prison slavery and involuntary servitude at the state and federal levels. Voters in Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont have approved similar changes to their states' constitutions to remove the loophole permitting slavery as a form of punishment for incarcerated people.Speakers:Theeda Murphy - Abolish Slavery National Network, Organizer & Operations ManagerMax Parthas - Abolish Slavery National Network, National Campaign Coordinator & Paul Cuffee Abolitionist Center in Sumter, SC., Acting DirectorClaude-Michael Comeau - Promise of Justice Initiative, Staff AttorneyModerator:maya finoh, Political Education and Research Manager

Episode 57: Unhoused & Queer: SCOTUS to decide if cities can punish people for sleeping outside

In episode 57 of The Activist Files, we’ll hear a discussion around Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case that went before the Supreme Court on April 22, 2024. According to the National Homelessness Law Center, “this case will decide whether cities are allowed to punish people for things like sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket, even when there are no safe shelter options.”The Center for Constitutional Rights, in our amicus brief, argued that the Supreme Court should rule that ordinances criminalizing homelessness violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. We’re joined by more than forty LGBTQIA+ rights groups who signed on in support of the brief. Amid a national homelessness crisis driven by a lack of affordable housing, the Court’s ruling in the case City of Grants Pass v. Johnson will have a profound effect on the rights and wellbeing of the hundreds of thousands of people without shelter in the United States. It will have a disproportionate impact on LGBTQIA+ people because they are unhoused at extremely high rates due to discrimination and bias. Legislators behind the laws have openly stated that their goal is to force unhoused people out of Grants Pass, a city of 40,000 that has no homeless shelters. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with the plaintiffs, issuing an injunction blocking enforcement of the ordinances.We’re joined by Eric Tars Senior, Policy Director at National Homelessness Law Center, and Justin Lance Wilson, Co-founder of Rise Public Strategies. Speakers:Mikaila Hernández, Bertha Justice Fellows Eric Tars, Senior Policy Director - National Homelessness Law CenterEric Tars serves as the National Homelessness Law Center’s Senior Policy Director, leading the development, oversight, and implementation of the Law Center’s policy advocacy agenda to cultivate a society where every person can live with dignity and enjoy their basic human rights, including the right to affordable, quality, and safe housing. Eric helped spearhead the launch of the Law Center’s national Housing Not Handcuffs campaign, has served as counsel of record in multiple precedent-setting cases, including Martin v. Boise in the 9th Circuit.Moderator:Zee Scout, Bertha Justice Fellows Resources:Johnson v. Grants Pass websitePress Release - 46 LGBTQIA+ Rights Groups Urge Supreme Court to Overturn Oregon Ordinances That Criminalize HomelessnessCase Page - City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (Amicus)

Episode 56: On 10 Years Since Floyd v. NYC: the Ongoing Campaign to End Racist Policing in NYC

In episode 56 of The Activist Files, we’ll hear a discussion sparked by the 10th anniversary of the historic ruling in our stop-and-frisk case, Floyd, et. al v. City of New York. The Center for Constitutional Rights, together with NYU Review of Law & Social Change, NYU’s Ending the Prison Industrial Complex, and NYU’s National Lawyers Guild Chapter, brought together law students, lawyers, organizers, and impacted community members for a one-day symposium on November 3, 2023. Together, they reflected on lessons learned in the last decade of struggle for police reform and accountability, and imagined a future of abolition and community safety.What you will hear is the first panel of the day: “10 Years Since Floyd.” The panelists were activist and organizer Joo-Hyun Kang, who formerly headed the coalition Communities United for Police Reform; Floyd plaintiff David Ourlicht; and Floyd counsel Darius Charney, now the Director of the Racial Profiling and Biased Policing Investigations Unit at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, also known as the CCRB. Our own Advocacy Director, Nadia Ben-Youssef moderated.Speakers:Darius Charney, Floyd counsel, current Director of the Racial Profiling and Biased Policing Investigations Unit at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)Joo-Hyun Kang, activist and organizerDavid Ourlicht, Floyd plaintiffModerator:Nadia Ben-Youssef, Director of Advocacy

Episode 55: In Orlando for the National March to Protect Trans Youth & Speakout for Trans Lives

In the latest episode of the Activist Files, Bertha Justice Fellow Zee Scout speaks to five plaintiffs in our case Women in Struggle, et al. v. Bain, et al., recorded on the ground just before the National March in Florida to Protect Trans Youth and a Speakout for Trans Lives that took place in Orlando on October 7. Hundreds turned out to protest the state’s violent and unconstitutional laws and spoke out against the wave of anti-trans bills, which attendees linked to a longstanding history of capitalist and imperialist domination in this country. Ahead of the march, participants in this historic grassroots movement worried about their ability to safely express their opposition to the anti-trans and anti-queer legislation passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis due to Florida “Bathroom Ban”, which prevents transgender, gender nonconforming, and certain kinds of intersex people from accessing a restroom in line with their gender because it defines sex as one’s anatomy and naturally occurring hormones at birth.Plaintiffs discuss the movement in support of LGBTQIA+ people, its historical and contemporary contexts, bringing to the discussion their personal motivations for joining the movement, and uplift ways that they continue to center trans joy in this  moment.Speakers:Melinda Butterfield, a 52-year-old transgender woman from New York CityAnaïs Kochan, is a 52-year-old transgender woman from BostonTsukuru Fors, a 52-year-old nonbinary person from West Hollywood, CaliforniaLindsey Spero, a 26-year-old non-binary person from Pinellas County, FloridaChristynne Wood, a 67-year-old transgender woman from Lakeside, CaliforniaModerator:Zee Scout, Bertha Justice Fellow