The Color Between The Lines with Esther Dillard

Esther Dillard
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The Color Between the Lines with Esther Dillard is a storytelling podcast that explores the histories, voices, and truths that often go unheard—but deeply shape our world.*]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" tabindex="-1" dir="auto" data-turn-id="4e29b2f2-7c46-4232-803b-4c51b0aa0f0d" data-testid="conversation-turn-6" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn="assistant"> Hosted by award-winning journalist and educator Esther Dillard, the show features thoughtful conversations with authors, activists, cultural leaders, and change-makers who use story to inform, challenge, and connect. Each episode goes beyond headlines to uncover the deeper context behind culture, history, and current events—helping listeners understand not just what happened, but why it matters. Listeners come away with a clearer understanding of how storytelling influences public opinion, policy, education, and identity. The podcast also offers insight into how stories can be used more intentionally—in advocacy, leadership, creative work, and everyday life—to communicate with clarity, build trust, and create impact. If you’re curious about history, culture, and the power of narrative to shape perspective and possibility, The Color Between the Lines invites you to listen more closely—and hear what’s always been there.

  1. 3d ago

    A Queer Preacher Is Changing Black Churches | Rev. Don Abram

    Rev. Don Abram says the policies gutting HIV funding right now are "death dealing." In this conversation, he walks through the three-year, university-backed study proving Black churches can be the ones to change that and explains why a queer preacher ended up leading the work. In this episode, you'll hear: the three-year study Toward Pride ran with Southern Illinois UniversityEdwardsville; how churches moved from "Antagonizing" to "Advocate" on a five-point scale; what the Faith, HIV and AIDS Advocacy Fellowship (FHIV) actually funded; why Black women are half of new HIV diagnoses and what churches are doing about it; what's happened to HIV funding and testing access under current federal policy; and what Abram says communities can do right now. Abram cites a 28% increase in affirming policies and practices at partner churches his figure, from the study's internal data. Music: "Let's Groove" by Hotham is licensed under a Creative Commons License. License: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbWh7zPj9LI  Stream: https://linktr.ee/hothammusic  Support by RFM - NCM: https://bit.ly/2xGHypM Guest links: Toward Pride https://www.towardpride.org. Instagram & Facebook @towardpride. For educators: free resources and the full study drop first on Substack at substack.com/@iamestherdillard. Full guides and lesson plans live at ColorBtwLinesMarket on Etsy.

    A Queer Preacher Is Changing Black Churches | Rev. Don Abram

  2. Aug 4

    Race for a Kidney: A Pastor's Fight to Live

    Pastor Steven Mills has already survived two cancers. Now the treatment that saved his life has left him fighting for a kidney transplant that could take up to five years to find. In this episode, Pastor Mills of First Baptist Church in Garden City, Kansas shares his journey through Hodgkin's lymphoma, colon cancer, and now end-stage renal disease and what it means to keep showing up for his daughter when his body won't cooperate. Dr. Giselle Guerra, Medical Director of Transplant Services at the Miami Transplant Institute, joins the conversation to explain HLA sensitization, why Black patients often wait longer for a compatible kidney, and what it truly costs to become a living donor. This is a story about survival, faith, and the fight to be present for the people who need us most. Pastor Mills has a GoFundMe set up to help cover what insurance doesn't link and living donor information in the episode notes. New episodes of The Color Between the Lines release weekly, wherever you get your podcasts. #KidneyTransplant #LivingDonor #HLASensitization #KidneyDisease #Dialysis #OrganDonation #BlackHealth #HealthDisparities #FaithAndHealing #TheColorBetweenTheLines

    Race for a Kidney: A Pastor's Fight to Live

  3. Jul 30

    Good News for Black America 2026 | 6 Wins You Didn't Hear About

    Good news for the Black community doesn't always make the headlines. Six months into 2026, there have already been real wins worth knowing about, in health, history, justice, land ownership, and economics. In this episode, Esther Dillard counts down six verified stories from this year: a man who bought the very prison that once held him and turned it into a place that helps others rebuild, a team of Black surgeons who made history leading one of the country's top trauma units, a scientific breakthrough finally offering hope for a disease that has affected Black families for generations, a small coastal Georgia community that fought to keep land its families have held since Emancipation, and a look at why an entire continent is quietly posting some of the fastest economic growth in the world. This is the first episode of Wins Report, a new recurring segment from The Color Between the Lines built around one idea: the world is not only what the headlines tell you it is. More from The Color Between the Lines: substack.com/@iamestherdillard Shop educator bundles: etsy.com/shop/ColorBtwLinesMarket

    Good News for Black America 2026 | 6 Wins You Didn't Hear About

  4. Jul 21

    Take the Cape Off | Marsha Evans on the Difference Between Surviving and Healing

    Black women are taught to wear a cape push through the stress, hold the family together, keep going no matter what. Marsha Evans says that cape isn't strength. It's survival mode, and survival is not the same as healing. In this conversation, Esther Dillard sits down with Marsha Evans a licensed professional counselor, sound healing practitioner, and yoga teacher who founded Willow Tree Counseling and Education Center in Northern Virginia. Marsha explains what she's telling clients who are more stressed than any self-care routine can hold, why most people don't recognize survival mode until their body forces them to, and how to build a wellness team even without an extensive budget. She also breaks down the science behind sound healing how specific frequencies affect the nervous system and why she believes healing requires real, physical community, not just virtual connection. New episodes of The Color Between the Lines drop every week on iHeartRadio, the Alive Podcast Network, and wherever you get your podcasts. Guest: Marsha Evans, licensed professional counselor, sound healing practitioner, and yoga teacher, founder of Willow Tree Counseling and Education Center. https://www.marshalistens.com/ Keywords: sound healing podcast, mental health podcast for black women, survival mode versus healing, holistic wellness podcast, black women self care, wellness team, sound healing practitioner, trauma healing podcast, black mental health, The Color Between the Lines podcast, Esther Dillard podcast #MentalHealth #BlackWomensHealth #SoundHealing #Healing #Wellness #SelfCare #HolisticHealth #TheColorBetweenTheLines

    Take the Cape Off | Marsha Evans on the Difference Between Surviving and Healing

  5. Jul 14

    When Doctors Won't Believe You | Kalynne Wilson on Living With Sickle Cell

    One in 365 Black births in the U.S. comes with a sickle cell diagnosis. Most people who don't have the disease can't describe what a pain crisis actually feels like - and that gap in understanding shapes how patients get treated in the emergency room. In this conversation, Esther Dillard sits down with Kalynne Wilson: a sickle cell warrior, adult advocate, and award-winning documentary filmmaker who has lived with the disease since birth. Kalynne describes what a pain crisis actually feels like, why adults with sickle cell face suspicion that children don't, and the hardest part of transitioning from pediatric to adult care. She also explains why she chose documentary filmmaking - not a social media campaign - to tell the story of an 11-year-old girl living with the disease, and why blood donation from Black donors is critical to treatment. Watch Kalynne's documentary, "How the Sickle Shapes" (Ayana's story): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_OA32Mw7NA Learn more about the Shine the Light on Sickle Cell Foundation: https://wepsicklecell.org/sinerge/shine-the-light/

    When Doctors Won't Believe You | Kalynne Wilson on Living With Sickle Cell

  6. Jul 7

    He Was Shot at 16. Now He Leads The Potter's House. | Pastor Touré Roberts on Knowing

    He was shot at 16 years old. The physical wound healed in months. The trauma rewired his thinking for decades. And right as his new book on divine certainty releases his wife suffers a serious accident he never saw coming. That is where this conversation begins. In this episode of The Color Between the Lines, I sit down with Pastor Tour Roberts co-senior pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas and founder of ONE to talk about his new book Knowing. In a season where the ground keeps shifting under our feet, Pastor Tour says the answer isn't more information. It's something older. Something every person was born with. Something most of us have forgotten how to read.   We cover: What Knowing actually is and why it's the first sense, not the sixth What anchored him when Sarah Jakes Roberts was seriously injured How trauma rewires your inner knower and what misknowing actually feels like The Gregg Braden DNA discovery and how it connects to divine programming How his parents' work in the Black Panther Party shaped his mission today Why his 9-year-old daughter wrote the foreword and why his publisher pushed back What he wishes he had known 20 years ago   Get the book Knowing by Pastor Tour Roberts: https://amzn.to/4y5P1cw   Follow Pastor Tour Roberts on all platforms: @TourRoberts   FOR EDUCATORS: Free discussion guides and classroom-ready educator resources at substack.com/@iamestherdillard and etsy.com/shop/ColorBtwLinesMarket   HEIRSOUND: Embed a loved one's voice inside a printed photograph using Canva and Google Drive. Free tutorial at youtube.com/@thecolorbetweenthelines. Step-by-step guide in description. I'm Esther Dillard. Your story matters.

    He Was Shot at 16. Now He Leads The Potter's House. | Pastor Touré Roberts on Knowing

  7. Jun 30

    Are White Men Smarter? Steve Phillips on Playing Offense for Racial Justice in America

    White men are 29% of this country and yet they hold 90% of CEO positions, 90% of venture capital, and 98% of the U.S. presidency. If we believe in merit, what explains that gap?   Political strategist and author Steve Phillips doesnt sidestep the question. In his new book Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else? Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America, he names the dynamic driving persistent inequality, gives it a framework, and shows us how to fight back on offense instead of defense.   In this conversation with journalist Esther Dillard, Steve breaks down: Why he says weve been asking the wrong question for 50 years What SWAMP (Straight White American Male Preference) means and how to audit it The legal argument that flips the script on opponents of DEI and affirmative action How November 2024 changed the book he thought he was writing Project 2126 why hes building something designed to last 100 years The first thing he wants listeners to do tomorrow morning   This is a conversation for anyone who teaches history, studies power, or is trying to understand what this political moment is actually demanding of us.   Free educator resources and lesson bundles available at substack.com/@iamestherdillard and etsy.com/shop/ColorBtwLinesMarket.   The Color Between the Lines is distributed by the ALIVE Podcast Network the first Black woman-owned podcast network. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, the ALIVE app, Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Samsung TV.

    Are White Men Smarter? Steve Phillips on Playing Offense for Racial Justice in America

  8. Jun 23

    It Could Happen to Anybody | The Possibilities Documentary | Blind, Black & Fighting to Be Seen

    A new documentary is putting the blind and low vision community at the center of its own story both on screen and behind the microphone. Possibilities, produced by the American Foundation for the Blind, is the first feature-length film made by blind and low vision filmmakers, and the first to fully integrate open audio description into the storytelling itself. In this episode of The Color Between the Lines, host Esther Dillard sits down with two of the voices behind this landmark film. Tony Stephens is Assistant Vice President of Communications at the American Foundation for the Blind, born legally blind, with more than 30 years at the intersection of disability rights, social justice, and media. He is a producer and featured voice in Possibilities and one of the foremost voices on Helen Keller's actual life, legacy, and complicated history. Krystle Allen is a Newark, New Jersey native, founder of Eyes Like Mine, Inc., a nonprofit supporting people who are blind, low vision, and deafblind, and one of the film's featured African American voices. In 2023 she became the first legally blind titleholder of the Ms. Newark USA Pageant. What unfolds in this conversation is something you won't hear anywhere else. Krystle was denied healthcare by a gynecologist who said she didn't feel comfortable treating her because she is blind. She filed a complaint, went through mediation, and was then legally restricted from telling that story for ten full years. She tells it here for the first time publicly. Tony connects the dots between the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the current climate threatening both Black history and disability inclusion making the case that these fights have never been separate. Possibilities premiered at Carnegie Hall on June 27, 2026 Helen Keller's 146th birthday and is now streaming on Apple TV and additional platforms worldwide. This is a story about what it means to be seen. And what happens when the people who are supposed to help you refuse. Watch Possibilities: https://afb.org/news-publications/media/possibilities Eyes Like Mine: https://eyeslikemine.org/team/ Free educator resources: https://substack.com/@iamestherdillard Educator bundles: https://etsy.com/shop/ColorBtwLinesMarket CHAPTER MARKERS (adjust timecodes to match your final edit) 0:00 Cold open: "I didn't know blindness picked you by age" 0:25 Introducing Possibilities and the guests 1:00 What "made by us, for everyone" looked like on set 2:57 Why Carnegie Hall on Helen Keller's birthday 4:04 Krystle Allen: why she said yes 5:08 Being Black and blind: the nuances people miss 7:05 The gynecologist who refused to treat her 11:47 Ten years of silence: the agreement 14:27 Tony: same fight, new face? 15:35 What to take from this if you're losing your vision 16:37 Is disability history under the same threat as Black history? 19:04 Employment, technology, and what's changed 21:02 How Krystle lost her sight at 16 24:05 Final word: what we want you to believe differently

    It Could Happen to Anybody | The Possibilities Documentary | Blind, Black & Fighting to Be Seen
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The Color Between the Lines with Esther Dillard is a storytelling podcast that explores the histories, voices, and truths that often go unheard—but deeply shape our world.*]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" tabindex="-1" dir="auto" data-turn-id="4e29b2f2-7c46-4232-803b-4c51b0aa0f0d" data-testid="conversation-turn-6" data-scroll-anchor="true" data-turn="assistant"> Hosted by award-winning journalist and educator Esther Dillard, the show features thoughtful conversations with authors, activists, cultural leaders, and change-makers who use story to inform, challenge, and connect. Each episode goes beyond headlines to uncover the deeper context behind culture, history, and current events—helping listeners understand not just what happened, but why it matters. Listeners come away with a clearer understanding of how storytelling influences public opinion, policy, education, and identity. The podcast also offers insight into how stories can be used more intentionally—in advocacy, leadership, creative work, and everyday life—to communicate with clarity, build trust, and create impact. If you’re curious about history, culture, and the power of narrative to shape perspective and possibility, The Color Between the Lines invites you to listen more closely—and hear what’s always been there.

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