Episodes

  • Trans Joy In Action
    Apr 8 2025
    Daniel Trujillo is a seventeen-year-old Chicano high school student from Tucson, Arizona, who is most known for being one of the creators and four organizers of Trans Prom. He’s been advocating for trans rights for most of his young life. Daniel and his rockstar momadvocate stop by the class to talk about the toll that forced political interruptions take on a family, the importance of supporting trans joy in action, and what it's like to be required to teach your peers while trying to be educated at school.

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    51 mins
  • Joy Is Resistance
    Apr 1 2025
    What do you know about trans joy? On this podcast episode, we’re joined by Vanessa Ford, an award-winning educator, author, and parent and Rebecca Kling, an educator, organizer, storyteller, and advocate for social change. The two talk about their collaboration to publish “The Advocate Educator’s Handbook: Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive” and the lessons they’ve learned working with educators, parents, and adults to encourage expansive resistance, remembering the importance of community and the politics of passing.

    Trump Is Rolling Back Protections for Transgender Students. What Educators Can Do https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-trump-is-rolling-back-protections-for-transgender-students-what-educators-can-do/2025/01

    www.jrandvanessaford.com
    www.theadvocateeducator.com
    VanessaFordDC
    www.RebeccaKling.com

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Love All The Babies
    Mar 25 2025
    Rainbow In Black is a non-profit organization that provides unwavering support, resources, and advocacy for Black families of transgender and gender-diverse youth. Sonia Murphy and Keisha Bell, two of the organization's three founders and operators, join the class to discuss the importance of creating community, advocating and showing up for all the babies, and addressing church hurt and hypocrisy. They remind us that acceptance does not require understanding, break down what “gender diverse” means, and talk about organizations like Gender Cool that work alongside Rainbow In Black and NBJC to ensure that YOU have everything you need so we all get free!

    https://www.rainbowinblack.org/

    https://gendercool.org/

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.
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    57 mins
  • Where IS my home?!? #AfricanAncestry
    Mar 18 2025
    If you’re still thinking about the significance of home or getting a DNA test to know where your people are from, this episode is for YOU. Dr. Gina Paige, co-founder of African Ancestry Inc., joined the class to discuss the company's pioneering efforts to ensure African descendants throughout the diaspora are empowered with information about the communities we come from and can contribute to, what distinguishes them from other companies that profit from selling our genetic information while also lacking the range to provide us with meaningful information in the exchange, and the power we can draw from having meaningful information about who we are and where we draw strength from.

    African Ancestry is offering a 10% discount on its DNA testing kits as a gift to the class. Visit AfricanAncestry.Com/Discount and use the code “TeachTheBabies” to activate the offer

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.
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    46 mins
  • Flip the Tables
    Mar 11 2025
    Are you at the point where you’re ready to flip tables? If not, what will it take for you to grow there? Our sister, Alencia Johnson, the self-proclaimed accidental entrepreneur, stops by the class to talk to us about the lessons learned from producing her debut novel, “Flip The Tables, a guide for everyday disruptors to find the courage, disrupt the status quo and create a better world, right where they are.” We discuss what she learned working on four presidential election campaigns, creating the “Stand With Black Women” branding and framework at Planned Parenthood, how the personal is political, and our responsibility to play BIG!

    www.Flipthetables.com

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    53 mins
  • Reaping Rewards- Black Women & Democracy
    Mar 4 2025
    Andre 3000 told us the South has something to say, and Dr. Christina Greer wants us to heed the lessons that Black women political leaders from the South are teaching us. Dr. Greer stops by the class to talk about her latest publication, “How to Build a Democracy. From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams,” and what it means to grow beyond fear, to build upon foundations established by our ancestors, being prepared to thrive at Historically White Colleges and Universities, the importance of political tithing and not waiting for America to grow up fully–she may never.

    How to Build a Democracy. From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/how-to-build-a-democracy/F34AB82F40A6FFD835D39C8AF46DA530

    Instagram: @dr_cmgreer

    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.
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    57 mins
  • Learning To Love (through Grief)
    Feb 25 2025
    Too often, we celebrate moments like holidays without holding space for the grief that comes for many of us. Advocate, attorney, and herstory making Florida State Representative Michel Rayner stops by the class to talk about how love shows up in her work, learning to live without your parents as anchors in the physical form, and the importance of having chosen family–folks who create space for you like attorney Ben Crump who wrote a check for Michele’s future and post-dated it for when she was brave enough to bet on herself.

    E-mail info@nbjc.org “GTN: Good Trouble Network” for more.

    Michel Rayner For Florida https://micheleforflorida.com/

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    39 mins
  • Permit Yourself To Love
    Feb 18 2025
    If James Baldwin and Toni Morrison had a literary baby, it would be Robert Jones Jr. He stops by the class to discuss what he learned about love from writing his debut novel, The Prophets. The New York Times Bestselling book shares the romance and love between two enslaved same-gender loving men on a plantation in the American South and a parallel story of Kosii and Elewa, who live and love in a place farther than the past on the African continent.

    Robert discusses the importance of permitting yourself to love and interrogating the pleasure in bigotry. He also discusses the importance of witnessing, writing, and harnessing our superpowers. The episode celebrates caring and compassionate adults who invest in us, open windows, and expose us to mirrors so that we can explore who we are in this world we didn’t ask to be born into.

    Witness Substack: https://robertjonesjr.substack.com/ Jordan Neely

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jordan_Neely

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    50 mins