Our guest is aLJo, founder of aLJo's Quarantine Gardening. His platform teaches people how to garden as a way to give communities of color autonomy over their food production, combat food insecurity, and provide a positive outlet to deal with everyday stress.

Our guest is Roy Kearse, a person in long-term recovery and Vice President of Recovery Services and Community Partnerships for Samaritan Daytop Village. The organization works to alleviate some of the adverse conditions that people in New York are dealing with. He talked with us about Samaritan Daytop Village’s PARC programs in Queens and the Bronx, and how they help to battle drug addiction and overdoses.

Victoria McDonald is a Jamaican-American woman from Rochester, New York. She received her Bachelor's degree in 2011 at Howard University. She also received her Masters degree in Urban Studies from Fordham University in 2021. Victoria has entered active duty in the Army as a human resources officer. Currently she’s an assistant professor of military studies at Fordham and the City University of New York. Victoria shares her experience with intra-racism in the Black community, and the importance of protecting Black women, and amplifying awareness of their struggles.

Our guest is Olivia Ngo, a senior at NYU studying public policy. She talks candidly with us about Asian hate and the need to support businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown that are struggling in the pandemic.

Our guest is Alexandra Lee, the current president of New York City's chapter of OCA Asian Pacific Advocates. As a volunteer and an Asian American woman in New York, she says the recent increase in anti-Asian violence has caused her to rethink how she goes about her daily life, but she is hopeful for social change.

When people are involved in their communities a lot of good can from it. But, sometimes there are barriers to civic engagement. The organization Women Creating Change is launching a new initiative to increase civic engagement in underserved communities across New York City. WCC's President and CEO Carole Wacey joins us to talk more about that effort and the organization's other priorities aimed at bringing about positive change.

WFUV's Kiera Mullany talks with Gloria Oladipo, a freelance journalist and a student at Cornell University, about her experience with mental illness misdiagnoses and her thoughts on accessibility within the mental healthcare system.

Our guest is Dr. Maria Cruz-Torres, an associate professor at the school of transborder studies at Arizona State University. She specializes in anthropology and environmental studies, with a focus on coastal communities and the intersection between the environment and gender. In our conversation, we talked about environmental racism. Cruz-Torres says the growing effects of climate change are disproportionately affecting communities of color.

Our guest in this edition of Community Dialogues is Natalia Veras, a Domincan-American artist from the Bronx. Veras is the creator of Culture Face, a digitally visual platform showing the beauty of different cultures and bodies. Veras talks to us about her experience being an Afro-Latina, and how that impacts her art, as well as the way people perceive her.

Our guest in this edition of Community Dialogues is Charmaine Ruddock, the Project Director of Bronx Health REACH, a coalition that seeks to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes. After working for the coalition for more than 20 years, Ruddock says the COVID-19 health crisis has highlighted the inequalities communities of color face in the Bronx.

Amara McNeil is a sophomore at Fordham University who has found a passion in advocating for racial justice on campus. Talia Mota, PhD, MPH, is an adjunct professor and molecular immunologist currently researching a cure for HIV. In this episode of Community Dialogues, McNeil and Mota discuss the history of racism in science and medical research, as well as the lasting effects of structual racism on modern-day healthcare.

Our guest on this edition of Community Dialogues is Malene Barnett. She founded the Black Artists + Designers Guild, a collective of makers in various disciplines such as interior design, architecture, fine art, textiles, and product design. The Guild aims to create a more inclusive and equitable arts and design industry, as well as provide a community for the Black artists involved.

This episode we’re joined by Mfalme Sikivu. Mfalme, who’s state name is Dontie Mitchell, is a jailhouse lawyer, activist, scholar, and mentor. He’s been incarcerated in New York State since 1998 when he was 17 on charges of armed robbery and attempted armed robbery. Mfalme is the founder and Executive Minister of a mutual self improvement fraternity, called the Ujamaa Fraternal Dynasty, which is known as UFD. He’s so far been unsuccessful in getting the New York Department of Corrections and Community supervision to approve prison chapters of UFD, though he has a legal case pending. Mfalme says he was recently sentenced to five months in solitary confinement at Marcy Correctional Facility for possession of documents relating to UFD. He’s applied for clemency so he can continue the work of UFD from the outside, but Governor Cuomo has yet to grant his request.

The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world. And black women are several times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Bruce McIntyre is trying to do something about that.  His partner died after an emergency C-section at a Bronx hospital in late April. McIntyre says her death is an example of long-standing inequities in the health care system for women of color. And that’s why he founded the Save A Rose Foundation. It’s dedicated to shedding light on issues of maternal mortality among women of color in the U.S. WFUV's George Bodarky recently talked with McIntyre on Zoom about the love of his life, Amber Rose Isaac, and his efforts to prevent other families from going through similar heartache.

Our guest is Shea Shola, a sophomore at Vanderbilt University with her own clothing line inspired by African culture. She says she was surrounded by African prints and fashion while she grew up in Jamaica, and she wants to bring more attention and appreciation to this kind of art.

WFUV's Kiera Mullany sits down with Sam Gross from the National Registry of Exonerations to discuss his recent report Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent, said to be the most thorough study ever conducted of police and prosecutorial misconduct in criminal cases in the United States.

Our guest in this edition of Community Dialogues is Jerome Nathaniel, the Director of Policy and Government Relations for City Harvest. The organization provides food to more than 400 soup kitchens, pantries and community centers across New York City's five boroughs.    We talked with Jerome about the local and national food insecurity crisis and how it disproportionately affects communities of color.

As New Jersey and states across the country start the process of legalizing marijuana, legislators, cannabis business owners and activists have a lot to think about. How does a state make the leap from criminalization to legalization and how do dispensary owners create socially responsible businesses?  In this episode of Community Dialogues, we're talking to Charlotte Hanna about marijuana legalization. She owns an ethically focused cannabis dispensary in Massachusetts, that’s part of a non-profit partnership.

Our guest in this edition of Community Dialogues is Desmon Lewis, a co-founder of The Bronx Community Foundation, which is dedicated to creating a more just and equitable Bronx.

The COVID-19 outbreak has compounded longstanding inequities in our society.  Among other things, the pandemic has exposed the digital haves and have-nots. In the age of distance learning, The Bronx Borough President’s office has been working with non-profit organizations to sound the alarm over the digital divide in the borough. They say a lack of access to computers and the internet is standing in the way of an education for many students in the Bronx who come from low-income families. Rose DeStefano is Senior Director of Collective Impact at Children's Aid Society. She’s among those working to level the playing field for low-income families and communities of color, and she’s our guest on this edition of Community Dialogues.