The Nerve! Conversations with Movement Elders

The National Council of Elders
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In these episodes we hear from elder organizers and activists who have been instrumental in almost all of the significant social justice movements of the 20th century. In dialogue with social justice activists of the 21st century, they share transformative stories and reflections based on their collective work for nearly a century of active engagement in nonviolent struggles for peace and justice. This podcast is a project of the National Council of Elders (NCOE) and is collaboratively produced by an intergenerational team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, alyzza may, Rakaya Nasir-Phillips, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, and Rae Garringer with scoring by Courtney Linsey. To learn more about NCOE visit https://nationalcouncilofelders.org

  1. 11/05/2025

    Federal Abuse of Power: ICE Violations and Militarized Cities

    Welcome back to The NERVE! Conversations With Movement Elders a podcast from the National Council of Elders featuring intergenerational conversations between elder and younger organizers about important topics in our movements today.  This episode features a conversation about Federal Abuse of Power: ICE Violations and Militarized Cities. We'll hear from organizers based in NYC, Arizona, and North Carolina about the work they are doing to support migrant communities who are under attack. They'll share strategies from their organizing and ideas for how listeners can get involved in helping protect and support immigrant communities in these times. This episode is hosted by Aljosie Aldrich Harding (she/her) a member of NCOE, a community organizer, a memory worker, and a strong believer in political education and spiritual healing.  Joining Aljosie in this conversation are: Reverend John Fife, co-founder of the Sanctuary Movement which protected Central American refugees from deportation in the 1980's. He is a founding volunteer with No More Deaths, which provides humanitarian aid to migrants in the Sonoran Desert borderlands. In 1992 Fife was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Emanuel Gomez-Gonzalez is the Communications Strategist at Siembra NC Mateo Guerrero-Tabares is the Trans Justice and Leadership Program Manager at Make the Road New York CREDITS: Created and produced by the National Council of Elders podcast and oral history team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, alyzza may, and Rae Garringer. RESOURCES: Defend and Recruit - Workbook produced by Siembra NC about developing local ICE Watch groups, organizing 4th Ammendment Workplace Trainings and more. Don't Be a Copogandist: Migration Edition - produced by Migrant Roots Media and Interrupting Criminalization for media makers and journalists

    45 min

  2. 08/27/2025

    20 Years After Katrina: Surviving Climate Disaster and Building Power

    Welcome back to The NERVE! Conversations With Movement Elders a podcast from the National Council of Elders featuring intergenerational conversations between elder and younger organizers about important topics in our movements today.  This episode features a conversation about how we can navigate climate crisis and survive on the frontlines in the immediate moment, while still moving forward with power building for a new world? Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Coast Crisis that unfolded in 2005 marked a major social movement turning point in the United States. Katrina exposed the combination of a heightened climate crisis and how the state and private forces are arranged not to protect or rebuild but to extract, abandon, and displace our people and our resources. This episode digs into community responses to Katrina 20 years ago, and current organizing in the face of Hurricane Helene and flooding across central Appalachia.  This episode is hosted by Aljosie Aldrich Harding (she/her) a member of NCOE, a community organizer, a memory worker, and a strong believer in political education and spiritual healing.  Joining Aljosie in this conversation are: Artivista Karlin (she/her) grew up in Miami, Florida and is a current college student based in Durham, NC. Artivista organizes with the Sunrise Movement a movement of young people fighting to stop the climate crisis and win a Green New Deal. Willa Johnson (she/her) lives in eastern Kentucky where she was raised. In 2022, Willa and her son lost their house in devastating floods. She has been doing flood and tornado response work in rural Appalachia ever since. She is the Disaster Recovery Communications Coordinator for Invest Appalachia  Ms. Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald (she/her) is based in Jackson, Mississippi and has been working across the gulf coast region for decades. Oleta is the Executive Director of the Children's Defense Fund Southern Regional Office. She is also the Regional Administrator for the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative for Economic and Social Justice. She was active in Hurricane Katrina support work.    CREDITS: Created and produced by the National Council of Elders podcast and oral history team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, alyzza may, and Rae Garringer. RESOURCES: Report produced by the Children's Defense Fund which Ms. Oleta Fitzgerald mentions during the podcast:  What It Takes to Rebuild a Village After a Disaster: Stories From Internally Displaced Children and Families of Hurricane Katrina and Their Lessons for Our Nation Documentary Recommendations from Aljosie Aldrich Harding:  Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time.  Director Traci A. Curry.  Hulu/Disney and NatGeo Katrina: Come Hell and High Water. Executive Producer Spike Lee.  Netflix

    58 min

  3. 08/06/2025

    Remembering & Reimagining : Cultural Organizing Through Public Art

    Welcome back to The NERVE! Conversations With Movement Elders a podcast from the National Council of Elders featuring intergenerational conversations between elder and younger organizers about important topics in our movements today.  This episode features a conversation about cultural organizing and public art, and the importance of being able to dream together and speak to and from the most human parts of ourselves through art in our movements for social justice. This episode is hosted by Frances Reid (she/her) a member of NCOE and a longtime social justice documentary filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. Joining Frances in this conversation are: Judy Baca (she/her) is a member of the National Council of Elders and one of America's leading visual artists who has created public art for four decades. Powerful in size and subject matter, Baca's murals bring art to where people live and work. In 1974, Baca founded the City of Los Angeles' first mural program, which produced over 400 murals, employed thousands of local participants, and evolved into an arts organization – the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). She continues to serve as SPARC's artistic director while also employing digital technology in SPARC's digital mural lab to promote social justice and participatory public arts projects. Autumn Dawn Gomez (they/she) (Comanche/Taos Pueblo) was born in Oga PoGeh Owingeh, Santa Fe, NM and calls the Northern Rio Grande Valley home, from Albuquerque to Taos. Autumn studied art and writing at IAIA and then went on to supporting Pueblo Youth through Tewa Women United. During this time, Autumn learned how to teach healthy relationship skills, healthy sexuality and body sovereignty, and trained as a birth doula, attending several births. In 2017, Autumn co-founded Three Sisters Collective, an Indigenous Women and Femme centered art and community care collective looking to create safe spaces for all Indigenous women and their families in Oga P'Ogeh/Santa Fe. As Art Director, Autumn creates public murals and curates accessible art experiences for community members. Bevelyn Afor Ukah (she/her) is a cultural organizer, artist, and facilitator, raised in Atlanta and now based in Greensboro. She is the director of the Committee on Racial Equity and Food Systems and also works as a consultant for groups engaged in work connected to storytelling, healing, and social change.   CREDITS: Created and produced by the National Council of Elders podcast and oral history team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, alyzza may, and Rae Garringer.

    44 min

  4. 07/02/2025

    Creating a World Beyond Tyranny

    Welcome back to The NERVE! Conversations With Movement Elders a podcast from the National Council of Elders featuring intergenerational conversations between elder and younger organizers about important topics in our movements today.  This episode features a conversation about the history of the rise of the authoritarian right wing in the United States, attacks on our archives and schools, and how we organize for a world beyond fascism.  This episode is hosted by Frances Reid (she/her) a member of NCOE and a longtime social justice documentary filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. Joining Frances in this conversation are: Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons (she/her) is Professor Emerita from the University of Florida. She is a Veteran of the Black Freedom, Peace, and Social Justice Movements from the 1960s until today. She was a student activist in the 1960s Sit-In Movement. Simmons was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and its Project Director In Laurel, Mississippi for two years beginning with the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.  Suzanne Pharr (she/her) is a southern queer feminist and anti-racist organizer and political strategist who has spent her adult life working to build a broad-based, multiracial, multi-issued movement for social and economic justice in the United States. Since 1980, Pharr has been tracking the growth of a US authoritarian movement and providing political education about its goals, strategies, and leadership.           Ashby Combahee (s/he/they) is a Black queer memory worker from the South. Ashby is a full-time librarian and archivist at the Highlander Research and Education Center and cofounder of Georgia Dusk: A Southern Liberation Oral History   Uyiosa Elegon (he/him) is an Edo organizer rooted in Houston, Texas. He is a co-founder of Shift Press, a media organization that provides training and news that encourage local youth civic engagement. To download a free e-copy of Suzanne Pharr's recently re-released book In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation visit suzannepharr.com CREDITS: Created and produced by the National Council of Elders podcast and oral history team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, alyzza may, and Rae Garringer.

    55 min

  5. 06/04/2025

    Embracing Conflict, Moving Towards Liberation

    Welcome back to The NERVE! Conversations With Movement Elders a podcast from the National Council of Elders featuring intergenerational conversations between elder and younger organizers about important topics in our movements today.  This episode features a conversation about moving through division and conflict to create and model the world we desire in our nation and in our social justice organizations. This episode is hosted by Aljosie Aldrich Harding (she/her) a servant-leader with NCOE, Movement Elder-in-Residence with Project South, and comrade and partner of the late Dr. Vincent Harding. Joining Aljosie in this conversation are: Loretta Ross (she/her) activist, public intellectual, professor, NCOE member and author of Calling In: How to Start Making Change With Those You'd Rather Cancel, based in Georgia. Loan Tran (they/them) national co-director of Rising Majority, based in North Carolina Kyla Hartsfield (she/her) project director at CompassPoint, based in North Carolina Resources recommended by Aljosie, Loretta, Loan and Kyla: Sister Song: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective The Land Knows The Way: Eco-Social Insights for Liberation by Ricardo Levins Morales Fighting Shame Around How We Respond in Conflict by Kyla Hartsfield and Laura Eberly the valley of its making by Nate Marshall     CREDITS: Created and produced by the National Council of Elders podcast and oral history team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, alyzza may, and Rae Garringer.

    46 min

  6. 05/07/2025

    Building Community Not Prisons

    Season 4 is here! And we're back, with a series of intergenerational conversations between elder and younger organizers about important topics in our movements today, produced by the National Council of Elders,  First up: we're digging into the work of building networks and practices of community safety, mutual aid, and transformative justice, and in resisting the construction of new prisons and cop cities.  This episode is hosted by Aljosie Aldrich Harding (she/her) a servant-leader with NCOE, Movement Elder-in-Residence with Project South, and comrade and partner of the late Dr. Vincent Harding. Joining Aljosie in this conversation are: Rahim Buford (he/him) founder of Unheard Voices Outreach, based in Nashville, TN. Bassey Etuk (he/him) movement organizer with Project South, based in Atlanta, GA. Amelia Kirby (she/her) who works with the Sycamore Project, the Yarrow Institute for Abolition and Organizing, and the coalition Building Community Not Prisons  based in eastern Kentucky. Janet Wolf (she/her) who is a member of the National Council of Elders  based in Nashville, TN. Janet's work focuses on public theology, transformative justice and nonviolent direct action organizing to disrupt and dismantle the cradle to prison pipeline through leadership by and partnership with those who are now or have been caged. Special thanks to Building Community Not Prisons - who are working to stop the construction of a federal prison in Letcher County, KY - for letting us name this episode after your coalition!

    46 min

  7. 09/04/2024

    Why Vote?

    In this episode we're exploring the role of voting in our movements through an intergenerational conversation between elder and younger organizers based in Georgia and New York. In this conversation National Council of Elders members and younger organizers dig into questions such as: Where do elections fit in our concept of real democracy? How important is our vote? How close are we to tyranny in this country, as most clearly outlined in Donald Trump's Project 2025 vision, and how much is that tyranny already here?  What are the paradoxes that we must grapple with as we face another election cycle in the U.S.?  This episode is hosted by Frances Reid (she/her) based in Oakland, California.  Frances is a member of the National Council of Elders and a veteran of 40 years of activist documentary filmmaking. Joining Frances in this conversation are: Loretta Ross (she/her) based in Northampton, Massachusetts and Atlanta, Georgia. Loretta is a long time activist and scholar who teaches at Smith College, was a Director at the first rape crisis center in the country in the 1970s, and whose latest book is Calling in the Calling Out Culture.  Barbara Smith (she/her) based in Albany, New York. Barbara is an activist and author, who played a groundbreaking role in opening up the dialogue about the intersections of race, class, sexuality and gender. She's a co-founder of the Combahee River Collective and of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and served two terms as a member of the Albany Common Council from 2006 to 2013. Nautica Jenkins (she/her) based in Atlanta, Georgia. Nautica is an organizer and Youth Programs MultiMedia Specialist at Project South. Her role is to assist young people in creatively communicating their stories and messages through various forms of media. Hannah Krull (she/any) based in Buffalo, New York. Hannah has been in the streets and engaging in popular education in her home region of Northern Appalachia for nearly a decade. She has worked on a number of local and national campaigns, and in recent years has organized on her university campus against sexist oppression, queerphobia, and for a Free Palestine. Hannah is a knowledge worker who grounds her work in hyperlocality and pushing back against structures of power and dominance.

    47 min

  8. 08/07/2024

    The (In)Visible Brick: Paradoxes in Nonviolence and Self Defense

    In this episode we're exploring the paradoxes in nonviolence and self defense through an intergenerational conversation between elder and younger organizers based in New Jersey, Florida, East Tennessee, and North Carolina. In this conversation, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) veterans and younger organizers dig into the always present tension between nonviolence and self-defense, sharing lessons from the past, and offering possibilities for the future.  This episode is hosted by Dr. Catherine Meeks (she/her) based in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Meeks is a member of the National Council of Elders, Executive Director of Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Healing and Transformation, and the author of A Quilted Life: Reflections of a Sharecropper's Daughter. Joining Dr. Meeks in this conversation are: Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons (she/her) based in Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Simmons is a long time civil rights movement organizer and professor emeritus at the University of Florida. Junius Williams (he/him) based in Newark, New Jersey, who is the official historian of Newark, host of the podcast "Everything's Political," and author of the book: Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power. Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson (she/her) based in East Tennessee, who is an activist organizer and movement strategist born and raised in the Black liberation and southern freedom movement. Ash-Lee is the first Black woman to serve as executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center and a leader in the Movement for Black Lives. DeMonte Alford (he/him) based in southeast North Carolina and is an organizer working with Democracy NC.

    46 min
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In these episodes we hear from elder organizers and activists who have been instrumental in almost all of the significant social justice movements of the 20th century. In dialogue with social justice activists of the 21st century, they share transformative stories and reflections based on their collective work for nearly a century of active engagement in nonviolent struggles for peace and justice. This podcast is a project of the National Council of Elders (NCOE) and is collaboratively produced by an intergenerational team: Aljosie Aldrich Harding, Frances Reid, alyzza may, Rakaya Nasir-Phillips, Eddie Gonzalez, Sarayah Wright, and Rae Garringer with scoring by Courtney Linsey. To learn more about NCOE visit https://nationalcouncilofelders.org

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