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Your Call

A new history of Black power told through one family’s journey

On this edition of Your Call, historian Dan Berger discusses his new book, Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family’s Journey, a new history of Black Liberation, told through the story of Zoharah and Michael Simmons, two activists who fell in love while organizing tenants and workers in the South in the mid 1960s. Berger shows how, in their lives, Black Power drives a global struggle for freedom and justice.

Berger writes, "I hope that readers use each deepening revelation to ask new questions of themselves and each other about the world we live in and the one we would like to inhabit."

Guests:

Dan Berger, historian of activism and Black Power, associate dean for faculty development and scholarship at the University of Washington Bothell School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, curator of the Washington Prison History Project, and author of several books, including Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family’s Journey

Dr. Zoharah Simmons, retired professor of religion and affiliated faculty in the Women's Studies Department at University of Florida, and veteran civil rights activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and National Council for Negro Women

Michael Simmons, veteran civil rights activist with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, co-founder of Ráday Salon, and former national director for housing and employment for the American Friends Services Committee

Web Resources:

TIME: The Black Power Movement Is a Love Story

Truthout: From SNCC to Black Lives Matter: Longtime Activists Discuss Black Liberation

The American Prospect: Tales From the Black Power Movement

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.
Bee Soll is a producer with Your Call at KALW, and a producer, writer, and editor at KCBS Radio in San Francisco. She is a former reporter for Crosscurrents and contributor at KPFA Radio.