Making Contact – June 20, 2025
[add description here]
Upcoming Episode
Making Contact
2:00 PM PACIFIC TIME: Fridays
Covering the movements, the issues, and the people fighting for some of the most important social justice issues of our time. Hosted by Amy Gastelum, Salima Hamirani, Anita Jonhson, and Lucy Kang.
A Making Contact Pride Show!
To celebrate Pride Month, we have a special show featuring stories from the Making Contact archives. We’ll revisit the Stonewall Uprising with the 1989 audio documentary Remembering Stonewall and then head to the gay rodeo with producer Vanessa Rancaño in a story from 2014.
Soul Force: The Legacy of Rev. James Lawson Jr.
A year ago, the world said goodbye to Reverend James Lawson Jr. On today’s show, we look back at the work and legacy this leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement and advocate of nonviolence, with the help of the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center.
Thirsting For Justice (part two): Community Utility Districts and East Orosi’s Drinking Water Problems (encore)
In part one of our series on water in the Central Valley of California, we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East … Continued
Today’s episodes of Making Contact and Pushing Limits are preempted by special programming for KPFA’s 2025 Spring Fund Drive. Sasha Lilley speaks with Greg King, an award-winning journalist and activist credited with spearheading the movement to protect Headwaters Forest, in Humboldt County, California. King initiated the “redwood wars” following the notorious 1985 takeover of the venerable … Continued
Today’s episodes of Making Contact and Pushing Limits are preempted by special programming for KPFA’s 2025 Spring Fund Drive. Brian Edwards-Tiekert speaks with photographer and author Josh Jackson, an advocate for public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Through his Forgotten Lands Project, he employs storytelling and visual narratives to inspire engagement … Continued
Today’s episodes of Making Contact and Pushing Limits are preempted by special programming for KPFA’s 2025 Spring Fund Drive. Christopher Bache, a professor emeritus of philosophy and religious studies, speaks with C.S. Soong about his twenty-year psychedelic journey, which is described and interpreted in his book LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from … Continued
The Healing Project: An Abolitionist Story (encore)
Composer, pianist, and vocalist Samora Pinderhughes tells us about The Healing Project. The Healing Project, a fundamentally abolitionist project, explores the structures of systemic racism and the prison industrial complex. This story first aired February 2023. The Healing Project takes action towards abolition with forms such as musical songs, films, an exhibition, community gatherings, live … Continued
Radical Therapy (from Re:Work)
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we bring you a story at the intersection of therapy, healing and social justice. We’ll hear about one therapist’s work to bring the lens of radical therapy and community care into her practice. This piece was produced by the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. GUEST: Claudia … Continued
The Promise and Peril of Geoengineering (encore)
Geoengineering is defined as some emerging technologies that could manipulate the environment and partially offset some of the impacts of climate change. Seems like the perfect solution for a consumerist society that lives on instant gratification and can’t stop polluting even at the risk of our futures, right? Well, let’s slow down. Today we’ll discuss … Continued
The Calling: Black Midwifery
For Black Maternal Health Week, we celebrate the important work that Black midwives do in their communities. In this week’s show, we’ll hear a conversation about how one woman followed her calling to midwifery in a story brought to us by the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. GUEST: Kimberly Durdin, licensed midwife and … Continued