Us with Dr. Crystallee Crain - Critical Conversations On The Challenges & Opportunities Of Our Time

US with Dr Crystallee Crain
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Real change takes root in our values and actions. I encourage my guests and listeners to lean into what it means to be stewards of justice, hope and liberation. Rooted in on the promise of self determination your host, Dr Crystallee Crain engages in questions about human rights, spiritual and political problems, and the ever present need to protect our planet. Choose liberation with your host, Dr. Crystallee Crain, and unite together so that we can learn from one another and respect each other as experts of our own realities.

  1. Jul 15

    Sudan Is Not a Footnote — The War the World Keeps Looking Away From

    Fourteen million people displaced. Two out of every five people facing hunger. The largest humanitarian catastrophe on Earth — and barely a headline. In this episode, Dr. Crystallee Crain turns toward the war the world keeps looking away from: the civil war in Sudan, now grinding through its fourth year. True to form, she starts at the roots, not the wreckage — tracing the conflict from colonial rule and the Darfur genocide, through the stolen revolution of 2019, to the two generals now tearing the country in half. She walks through where the war stands in the summer of 2026: the massacre at El Fasher, the siege of El Obeid, the drone war killing civilians by the hundreds, and the famine being used as a weapon. Then she follows the money — the gold, the arms, and the foreign powers profiting while humanitarian appeals go unfunded — and closes with what prevention, accountability, and everyday solidarity actually look like from where we sit. Content note: This episode includes descriptions of violence, famine, and sexual violence. Please listen with care. Take action: Support the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee, Doctors Without Borders, and Sudanese-led emergency response rooms — and call your representatives and ask one question: What are you doing about Sudan? References FAO / WFP / UNICEF joint alert, "Risk of Famine persists as nearly 19.5 million people face acute food insecurity in Sudan," May 15, 2026 — unicef.org/press-releasesUN News, "Sudan hunger crisis deepens as UN warns millions face acute food shortages," May 2026 — news.un.orgAl Jazeera, "Tracking Sudan's humanitarian crisis: By the numbers," December 15, 2025 — aljazeera.comAl Jazeera, El Obeid siege coverage and UN warnings of mass atrocities, June 29–July 1, 2026 — aljazeera.com/where/sudanHuman Rights Watch, World Report 2026: Sudan — hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/sudanAmnesty International, report on El Fasher (crimes against humanity / ethnic cleansing), via The Guardian, July 1, 2026Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker: "Civil War in Sudan" (updated 2026) — cfr.orgHealth Policy Watch, "Sudan's Catastrophic Civil War Enters Fourth Year," April 15, 2026 — healthpolicy-watch.newsInternational Rescue Committee, "Crisis in Sudan: What is happening and how to help," July 2026 — rescue.orgWorld Food Programme, "Risk of Famine in Sudan" emergency page — wfp.org/emergencies/sudanUNHCR, Sudan Situation Operational Data Portal — data.unhcr.org/en/situations/sudansituationUNICEF, Humanitarian Situation Report No. 39 & 2026 Humanitarian Action for Children: Sudan — unicef.org/appeals/sudanReuters, reporting on Ethiopia-based RSF training camp, February 2026AP News, UN human rights chief on drone casualties (1,000+ civilians, Jan–May 2026); UAE / Colombian mercenary allegations, May 2026ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), Sudan country analysis, incl. "Can the RSF seize El Obeid?", July 6, 2026 — acleddata.com/country/sudanSudan Tribune and Radio Dabanga, ongoing frontline reporting, 2026Mo Ibrahim, op-ed in the Financial Times, April 2026 (via Health Policy Watch) Music: Epidemic Sound Jungle Rumble, Andreas Dahlback Leaving No One Behind, Christian Anderson

    Sudan Is Not a Footnote — The War the World Keeps Looking Away From

  2. Jun 30

    HER 250 - We Are the Blueprint: Building an Intersectional Future

    HER 250, Episode 3: From Bearing Witness to Building Power The final episode of HER 250 turns from history to the present — and to what comes next. Dr. Crystallee Crain opens with an unflinching look at where the gaps from Episodes One and Two still show up today. The wage gap remains stark and racially specific: Native American women are paid 53 cents, Latinas 54 cents, and Black women 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. Maternal health disparities persist even across education levels — Black women with a college degree have higher pregnancy-related mortality rates than white women without a high school diploma, evidence that the gap is about racism, not income. But this episode is also a celebration of what's being built right now. Dr. Crain highlights Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history, who used her position as Secretary of the Interior to launch the federal investigation into Indian boarding schools discussed in Episode One. She points to Stacey Abrams, whose work with Fair Fight Action after Georgia's contested 2018 governor's race helped register hundreds of thousands of new voters. From there, Dr. Crain lays out a concrete vision for an intersectional future — disaggregated public health data, redistributive philanthropy, real community governance, and culture as a vehicle for healing — drawing directly from her own work building the Michigan Prevention Data Atlas. The series closes on a personal note: a reflection on the women of Flint, Michigan, who Dr. Crain calls "the infrastructure of this country," and a charge to listeners that the next 250 years belong to all of us. Episode 3 Citations [1] Wage gap figures are sourced from the National Partnership for Women and Families, "America's Women and the Wage Gap" (nationalpartnership.org), based on U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2025 (reporting 2024 data), and corroborated by the AAUW Equal Pay Day Calendar (aauw.org, 2026). [2] Maternal health disparities by education level are documented by KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), "Racial Disparities in Maternal and Infant Health: Current Status and Key Issues" (kff.org). [3] Deb Haaland's historic confirmation as the first Native American Cabinet secretary and her launch of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative are documented by the U.S. Department of the Interior (doi.gov, press release, May 11, 2022). [4] Stacey Abrams's voter registration work through Fair Fight Action following the 2018 Georgia governor's race is documented by Fair Fight Action (fairfight.com) and corroborated by reporting from NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. See also: Abrams, Stacey. Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America. Henry Holt, 2020. Sound Epidemic Sound Osoku Title:Wanderlust

    HER 250 - We Are the Blueprint: Building an Intersectional Future

  3. Jun 30

    HER 250 - Race, Erasure, and the Women Who Were Told to Wait Their Turn

    HER 250, Episode 2: Race, Erasure, and the Women Who Were Told to Wait Their Turn In 1913, more than five thousand women marched on Washington to demand the vote — and Black women were told to march at the back. Ida B. Wells refused. In Episode Two of HER 250, Dr. Crystallee Crain pulls apart the suffrage movement's celebrated history to show what it cost the women it left behind. She names what's usually left out of the textbooks: Elizabeth Cady Stanton's documented opposition to Black men receiving the vote before "educated" white women,and Susan B. Anthony's strategic distancing of the movement from Black suffragists to preserve support among white Southern women. Then she turns to the women who built power anyway. Ida B. Wells, born into slavery in 1862, founded the first Black women's suffrage club in Chicago and stepped back into a segregated march rather than accept the back of the line. Mary Church Terrell co-founded the National Association of Colored Women in 1896, building national infrastructure for Black women's civic power at a time when white-led organizations shut the door. And Fannie Lou Hamer — sharecropper, organizer, and survivor of a forced sterilization she later named the "Mississippi appendectomy" — delivered 1964 Democratic National Convention testimony so powerful that President Lyndon Johnson called an emergency press conference just to keep it off live television. It aired anyway. The episode closes with Dr. Crain connecting this history to Kimberlé Crenshaw's 1989 framework of intersectionality — naming what Black women had been living and organizing around for a century before it had a name. References [1] The scale and date of the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession is documented by the Brennan Center for Justice, "The 19th Amendment, Explained" (brennancenter.org). [2] The order for Black women to march at the back of the 1913 procession is documented by the National Park Service, "A Noble Endeavor: Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Suffrage" (nps.gov). [3] Elizabeth Cady Stanton's documented opposition to Black men's enfranchisement ahead of white women is sourced from the National Women's History Museum, "Votes for Women Means Votes for Black Women" (womenshistory.org), and corroborated by the Brennan Center for Justice. [4] Susan B. Anthony's strategic distancing from Black suffragists is documented in Paula J. Giddings, Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2008), as referenced by the National Park Service and American Heritage magazine. [5] Ida B. Wells's founding of the Alpha Suffrage Club (January 1913) and her defiance of the segregation order at the Washington march are documented by AAUW (aauw.org), WTTW Chicago, and the National Park Service. [6] Mary Church Terrell's 1896 founding of the National Association of Colored Women is documented by the Brennan Center for Justice and the National Women's History Museum. [7] Fannie Lou Hamer's 1961 forced sterilization, her coining of the term "Mississippi appendectomy," and her August 22, 1964 DNC testimony are documented by PBS American Experience (pbs.org), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (nmaahc.si.edu), and the Center for Constitutional Rights (ccrjustice.org). [8] Kimberlé Crenshaw's introduction of "intersectionality" is sourced from her foundational paper, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics," University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989. Sound Epidemic Sound Seaview Title: Sulu

    HER 250 - Race, Erasure, and the Women Who Were Told to Wait Their Turn

  4. Jun 30

    HER 250 - Celebration of Resistance

    HER 250, Episode 1: This country is turning 250. But whose independence are we actually celebrating? In the opening episode of HER 250, Dr. Crystallee Crain pulls back the curtain on America's founding to ask a question the parades won't: where were the women of color when this nation was born — and why were their stories left out of the textbooks? Dr. Crain tells the story of Ona Judge, a 22-year-old woman enslaved by George Washington who escaped his household in 1796 rather than be given away as a wedding gift, and who evaded the first president's repeated attempts to recapture her for the rest of her life.[1] She introduces Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, who sued for her freedom in Massachusetts in 1781 using the state's own constitutional language — and won, becoming the first African American woman to do so.[2] The episode turns to the Indigenous women erased from the founding narrative entirely, including Lozen, the Apache warrior and prophet known as "a shield to her people," who fought alongside her brother Chief Victorio and died a prisoner of war.[3] Dr. Crain also confronts the federal Indian boarding school system — a policy that operated from 1819 into the 1960s and has been linked to hundreds of confirmed child deaths and dozens of burial sites, according to a 2022–2024 federal investigation.[4] The episode closes by connecting this history directly to the present: today's stark racial disparities in maternal health outcomes, Dr. Crain argues, are not an accident — they're the long shadow of a founding that never accounted for these women in the first place.[5] [1] Ona Judge's escape from George Washington's household, the circumstances surrounding it, and Washington's repeated attempts at recapture are documented by the National Park Service ("Ona Judge Escapes to Freedom," nps.gov), George Washington's Mount Vernon ("Ona Judge," mountvernon.org), and Smithsonian Magazine. Judge's own account is drawn from her 1845 interview published in The Granite Freeman. [2] Elizabeth Freeman's 1781 freedom suit, Brom and Bett v. Ashley, is documented by the National Constitution Center ("Elizabeth Freeman, her case for freedom, and the Massachusetts Constitution," constitutioncenter.org) and the National Women's History Museum (womenshistory.org). [3] Lozen's role in the Apache Wars, her relationship to Chief Victorio, and her death in U.S. custody at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama in 1889 are documented via historian Eve Ball's recorded oral histories (In the Days of Victorio, University of Arizona Press, 1970) and the New Mexico Historic Women Marker Program (nmhistoricwomen.org). [4] Federal Indian boarding school data is drawn from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume 1 (May 2022, doi.gov) and the 2024 follow-up findings reported by the Equal Justice Initiative (eji.org), confirming 408 federal schools across 37 states/territories (1819–1969), at least 973 confirmed child deaths, and 74 identified burial sites at 65 schools. [5] Maternal mortality disparities are drawn from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, "Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2024" (cdc.gov/nchs), reporting a rate of 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women versus 14.2 for white women. Sound: Epidemic Sound - Timelapse Title: nothanks

    HER 250 - Celebration of Resistance

  5. Jun 12

    On Stepping Into Your Purpose with Geremy Johnson

    What does it take to turn a prison conversation into a life's mission? In this episode, Dr. Crystallee Crain sits down with Geremy Johnson — justice-informed strategist, peer-led innovator, and Founder of Turning 365, Inc. — for a conversation that is equal parts reckoning and revelation. Geremy doesn't come with talking points. He comes with truth. Born in New York City, rooted in Virginia, and shaped by over two decades of lived experience and long-term recovery, Geremy has spent his life building what others said couldn't be built: real pathways for people the system was designed to forget. In this conversation, he takes us back to the beginning — not the programs, not the frameworks, but the moment inside a prison where he realized his story had the power to help someone else survive. He gets honest about what re-entry actually felt like in those early years, what almost pulled him back, and how he made the quiet, grueling shift from surviving to leading. He talks about what he says — not from the curriculum, but from the soul — when he's sitting across from someone who just came home and isn't sure they believe change is real for them. And he closes with the words he wishes someone had said to him. Whether you're in the work, just getting out, or still trying to believe that a different life is possible — this episode is for you. Topics explored: Life before recovery and the moment everything shifted — the early, unvarnished reality of re-entry — navigating credibility without erasing your story — the Foundations of Recovery and the P.E.E.R. Workbook — what peer leadership looks like when it's grounded in honesty — and a direct message to anyone still fighting to believe transformation belongs to them too. Learn more: www.turning365.com

    On Stepping Into Your Purpose with Geremy Johnson

  6. May 28

    Slated - I Am She Poetry Album Closing Track

    A long awaited compilation of poetry by dr crystallee crain, her debut poetry album I Am She explores over 10 years of talent, triumph and tragedy in prose that provoke emotion and truth in the experience of women of color, and in particular, black women in the United States. It's not a work of perfection but to express and show process and growth. The last track of the project - SLATED - is the best tool to share that progress. It is shared on US with Dr Crystallee Crain to promote the album and invite others to continue to tell the truth and be free of the abuses we know of the world - so we can create the joy and love we all deserve. SLATED is a moment in time of release from abuse and neglect, the release of it is healing and provocative for the healing hearts of the world - as we stand the test of time. Thank you. Much love.

    Slated - I Am She Poetry Album Closing Track

  7. Mar 26

    Book Announcement - Superfluous Pains: A Life Given Without Consent But Lived With Intent

    What happens when private pain is finally spoken aloud? In her powerful new memoir, Superfluous Pains: A Life Given Without Consent, But Lived with Intent, Dr. Crystallee Crain turns lived experience into testimony, healing, and action. This is not just a book of memories. It is a courageous collection of essays, poems, micro-nonfiction, and reflections that confront trauma, family wounds, race and identity, intimate-partner violence, and the failures of systems that are meant to protect survivors. Through spare, lyrical, and unflinching prose, Dr. Crain transforms suffering into a public tool for healing and communal repair. With honesty and compassion, Superfluous Pains asks us to reconsider the stories too often dismissed as “superfluous” — the ones people are told to hide, minimize, or endure in silence. Dr. Crain names harm without hesitation, then offers a path forward through somatic grounding, healing-centered leadership, and community accountability. As the press release notes, this book is both a witness and a tool — an act of public vulnerability designed to de-stigmatize suffering and invite readers into the hard work of repair. Listeners will find thematic sections such as “Why We’re Here,” “Shame,” “Victim Defendant,” and “Beyond the Body,” along with practical insights, terminology, and resources for advocates, clinicians, educators, survivors, and anyone seeking language for healing and justice. Dr. Crystallee Crain brings decades of experience as an interdisciplinary public-health scholar, human-rights advocate, and practitioner of healing-centered leadership to every page. Her work bridges personal narrative, research, and real-world practice — making Superfluous Pains an essential read for anyone interested in trauma, resilience, and transformation. Superfluous Pains: A Life Given Without Consent, But Lived with Intent — a memoir of courage, truth, and healing. To learn more, request media materials, or connect with the author, visit crystalleecrain.org.

    Book Announcement - Superfluous Pains: A Life Given Without Consent But Lived With Intent

  8. Mar 26

    Community Conversations with The Liberation Caucus & Mayor Daniel Mahoney (Jackson, Michigan)

    In this episode of Community Conversations with The Liberation Caucus & Mayor Daniel Mahoney of Jackson, Michigan, Dr. Crystallee Cain hosts a powerful discussion on the challenges of our time, centering Black liberation, community advocacy, and the work of dismantling systems of oppression. Featuring our amazing guest hosts Brandon Jessup, Dr. Stacey Deering they join Dr. Crystallee in a conversation that explores collective action, impact of the state of the world, and building a more just future for Jackson and beyond. Sound citation: Epidemic Sound: Diamond Heist, by Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen

    Community Conversations with The Liberation Caucus & Mayor Daniel Mahoney (Jackson, Michigan)
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About

Real change takes root in our values and actions. I encourage my guests and listeners to lean into what it means to be stewards of justice, hope and liberation. Rooted in on the promise of self determination your host, Dr Crystallee Crain engages in questions about human rights, spiritual and political problems, and the ever present need to protect our planet. Choose liberation with your host, Dr. Crystallee Crain, and unite together so that we can learn from one another and respect each other as experts of our own realities.

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