Perspectives ends 2023 with a conversation with journalist and author Jennie Miller Helderman and her book, As the Sycamore Grows. Helderman originally had been assigned to write a magazine story about Ginger, an abuse survivor turned advocate. Her story yielded this book. Helderman takes us inside Ginger and Mike's harrowing tale. She talks with both the survivor, her abuser, other family members, friends and others who knew the couple. During the COVID-19 Pandemic the number of domestic abuse ...
Jan 02, 2024•24 min
Infertility is a complex, heart-wrenching condition that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, affects one in six couples. And while infertility is widely perceived as a “women’s issue,” approximately one-third of infertility among heterosexual couples is male-related. To aggravate matters, surveys indicate that more than 60 percent of people struggling with infertility do not tell even their close family and friends. With INFERTILITIES, A Curation curators and editors El...
Dec 18, 2023•25 min
Ashley Kirkwood struggled to get into law school. Her struggle was so real that she literally camped out in the admissions office until they let her in. She worked hard and transferred to Northwestern Law graduating at the top of her class. She tells me she felt unseen and underutilized at her firm. So she quit a job paying her more than $300,000 a year to go into business for herself. Now she runs a law firm and a speaking business. Her book is Speak Your Way to Cash.
Dec 11, 2023•25 min
The growing prominence of hybrid work situations makes it easier now more than ever for people to earn extra money. The challenge in a thriving gig economy is knowing what to do and when to start. A new survey from Index by Pinger shows that 67% of Americans have a small business, have a side hustle or do freelance work. My guest is Steve Strauss, the small business columnist for Inc. Magazine. He says there are some side hustles that are more practical to start earning money right away with the...
Dec 04, 2023•24 min
LeBron James is the protagonist in two very American tales: one, a success story the nation loves because it shows its benevolence; the other, the latest installment in an ongoing chronicle of racial hatred. He’s the poor boy from a “broken” home in a poverty-stricken neighborhood who makes good. He’s also the poor Black boy who makes good, then at the apex of his career finds that the N-word has been spray-painted across the gate to his home. Despite his unmatched skill, success and popularity,...
Dec 04, 2023•24 min
Atlanta recently was named the 12th most fit city in America. Atlanta once was in the top 10 and Robert Bunch, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia believes Georgia can work its way back into the top 10 when it comes to physical fitness. The ranking is based on real metrics captured by primary care physicians. As the holidays begin and communities enter into the traditional season of "eating, drinking and being merry," Bunch shares insights on how everyone in the community can enjoy the holi...
Nov 28, 2023•19 min
Brandon Siler played college football at the University of Florida. His impressive pro football career included stops in San Diego and Kansas City. Today he's an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and mental health advocate. He founded Legacy Pro Sports with the goal of helping former NFL players who are unable to obtain NFL disability benefits. He shares his philosophy of leadership in the book Definition of a Leader. Using personal anecdotes, insights from his NFL days and revelations from his tim...
Nov 28, 2023•25 min
As the holiday season enters full swing, often conversation centers on the many Christmas-themed movies on television and in theaters, but what about Thanksgiving? Now in theaters is just that, "The Great Turkey Town Miracle," based on a true story years ago in California. Says star and Atlanta-based actor Cameron Arnett, it's a story of 5 loaves, 2 fishes, and 4000 turkeys. It is a story filled with universal themes of love, loss, parenting challenges, job pressures, family, faith and more. Arn...
Nov 20, 2023•25 min
There is simply not enough diversity among the patient population when it comes to clinical trials in health care. It's a problem that's been around for many decades. Morehouse School of Medicine is working to make a difference. The African American Heart Study is a collaboration between Amgen, the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) and the Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Elizabeth Ofili, a professor of medicine at MSM and practicing cardiologist joins me to explain the new research and ...
Nov 20, 2023•24 min
On February 23, 2020, Dhaval Desai and his wife, Yogita, welcomed their new son into the world. With the arrival of Kaveh to join his four-year-old sister Kaiya, their family at last felt complete. “A promising year lay ahead,” he reflected. Yes, it would be chaotic—both physicians, Dhaval and Yogita would now have to juggle two demanding careers with the demands of an infant and a preschooler—but nothing they couldn’t handle. Then, a new virus arrived. In BURNING OUT ON THE COVID FRONT LINES: A...
Nov 13, 2023•25 min
In the early 1900s, America’s cities were teeming with immigrants whose children toiled in factories and lived in overcrowded tenements in neighborhoods plagued by disease, poverty, violence, and crime. In response, a group of social reformers embarked on a mission to protect children and mold them into productive, law-abiding citizens. Known as child-savers, these overwhelming white and well-off reformers laid the therapeutic foundation for family court. At its core was the Great Idea that judg...
Nov 13, 2023•25 min
The Atlanta Opera presents its first mainstage event of the new season with a new co-production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto on Nov 4, 7, 10 and 12, 2023 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. One of the composer’s most celebrated operas, Rigoletto tells a poignant tale of love, betrayal, and revenge. We are talking with Jasmine Habersham who is singing the role of Gilda in the production. Habersham is a Georgia native who has performed globally including her international debut in this rol...
Oct 30, 2023•20 min
The current war in Israel renews attention on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I invited Rabbi Pinchas Taylor to talk about Judaism and its influence. During our conversation he provides a primer on Judaism, what it means to be chosen and the role of the Messiah in the Jewish and Christian faith. He explains the conflict in Israel is more than a battle over land and helps listeners to understand why Israel is fighting to defeat Hamas.
Oct 30, 2023•25 min
Grace Harry has a great story including 30 years in the music business, but something was lacking from her life. It was something she'd not experienced since childhood. It was Joy. Harry decided to rediscover and embrace the joy in her life and she wants readers to do the same. In The Joy Strategist, Harry takes readers on a journey to explore how to find joy, how to re-discover joy and how to feel true unfettered joy and incorporate it into our everyday lives. She coaches readers with her story...
Oct 23, 2023•25 min
The weather is cooler. Halloween is near and it's a great time to curl up by the fire with a good book. We start the show this week with a brief conversation with New York Times best-selling author Shelby Mahurin. Her latest book is The Scarlet Veil. It's a dark and thrilling vampire romance set in the world of Mahurin's Serpent & Dove series of tales. Next we talk with Dr. Tabia Akintobi, Professor and Chair of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine. MSM ha...
Oct 16, 2023•25 min
From award-winning author Brandy Colbert comes a new book: The Blackwoods. It's the story of four generations of a Black Hollywood family filled with ambition, fame, struggle, loss and love. Colbert masterfully weaves together the narratives of Hollis, Ardith and Blossom Blackwood. Theirs is a story where everything is personal and nothing is private.
Oct 09, 2023•25 min
It's a simple fact. Even leaders need coaches. Archie L. Jones, Jr., a Morehouse grad, Atlanta resident, Harvard Business professor, author, executive and board director joins is my guest on the show. He's the founder and CEO of NxGen COACH Network, an organization created to help and empower the next generation of global leaders, particularly those in underinvested and underrepresented communities. He's just launched a new podcast - Training Camp for Leaders with Archie L. Jones. We talk about ...
Oct 09, 2023•25 min
On Sunday, October 8th, V (formerly Eve Ensler) , the Tony Award-winning, best-selling author of The Vagina Monologues and Reckoning, will host an Evening of Reckoning and Rising at the Carter Center to celebrate V’s newest book Reckoning and the 25th anniversary of the V-Day movement to end violence against women, gender expansive people and the Earth. The benefit event will include readings and remarks from V (formerly Eve Ensler), V-Day Board Members Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda, Maya Penn &...
Oct 06, 2023•25 min
Most know Ted Turner through his many well documented successes: founder of CNN; Time Person of the Year; winner of The World Series and America's Cup; former owner of the Atlanta Braves, TBS, TNT, MGM, Hanna-Barbera, and the Atlanta Hawks. His gargantuan land holdings are now the subject of a new book, a very big, new book. Conserving America's Wildlands: The Vision of Ted Turner is a newly published compendium of stunning images shot by Ted's photojournalist son, Rhett. The two million acres u...
Oct 06, 2023•25 min
Arts Clayton has worked to enrich the lives of the residents of Clayton County for more than 30 years. The gallery, at 136 South Main Street in Jonesboro, plans to paint the town beginning Saturday, September 30 with the start of an International Arts, Music & Film Festival. The event is produced in collaboration with City Council Chair Jeff Turner and is an effort to cultivate the spirit of Art among the people in the community with an emphasis on youth and others to be a part of the creati...
Sep 25, 2023•20 min
In the fight to defeat addiction, are people in recovery winning the daily battle? Aware Recovery Care believes it offers a unique tool to helping people in recovery win the fight. Their program delivers treatment in the privacy of the home with a focus on personalized care with the family's involvement. The program began in Connecticut with input from specialists at Yale University and has expanded into eleven states including Georgia. Laura Perry, Director of Family Wellness for Aware Recovery...
Sep 25, 2023•25 min
Corazon Lopez yearns to finally start training as a babaylan (a mystical healer and spirit guide) under her powerful guardian, Aunt Tina. As soon as her magic awakens, Corazon plans to bring her parents back from the dead and no longer have to rely on a soul key to allow visits with their ghosts for a few hours every Saturday night. But when a vengeful ghost steals Corazon’s precious key, the fragile balance between the human world and the spirit world is thrown out of whack. Aunt Tina reveals t...
Sep 18, 2023•20 min
Atlanta-based, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doug Blackmon looks back on his experience as a member of the first class of Black and white students to attend all 12 grades together in Leland, MS in a new documentary, The Harvest. The film has already been named a finalist for the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. The Harvest is a deeply personal depiction of one Southern town's painful struggle to integrate its public schools and the continuing repercussions still felt in the c...
Sep 11, 2023•25 min
Their list of hits is endless. Songs including Celebration, Ladies Night, Get Down on It, Cherish, Jungle Boogie, Too Hot and many more make Kool and the Gang the most sampled artists in Hip Hop. The band formed in 1964 and continues to perform with 2 of its original members including Robert "Kool" Bell. Kool and the Gang will be performing at Mable House Amphitheater in Cobb County on Saturday, September 16th. Founder Robert Bell dishes the dirt and talks the hits with Condace Pressley on this ...
Sep 11, 2023•20 min
2023’s Super Bowl LVII marked the first time that the two starting quarterbacks were Black. Even though the majority of NFL players are Black—and have been for decades—this milestone came in the second century of the league’s history, a history that would be incomplete without taking race into account. In ROCKET MEN: The Black Quarterbacks Who Revolutionized Pro Football sports journalist John Eisenberg relates the definitive history of Black quarterbacks in the NFL. Based on in-depth interviews...
Sep 11, 2023•25 min
In the United States, Blacks/African Americans are disproportionately impacted by HIV compared to other races and ethnicities. In 2021, there were approximately 36,100 new HIV diagnoses and Black/African Americans made up 40% of the new cases; of which 39% were Black/African American men who have sex with men. If current HIV diagnoses rates persist, about 1 in 2 Black men who have sex with men (MSM) will be diagnosed with HIV during their lifetime. But HIV is no longer a death sentence. People w...
Sep 05, 2023•20 min
Runway model turned entrepreneur Dr. Kimberly McNair shares her secret to success September 21, 2023 at the 10th Annual Women on the Move summit at Porsche' North American Headquarters. McNair turned a chance meeting with actor Wesley Snipes into a growing and thriving business. Now her goal is to empower and inspire women and men of diverse backgrounds to do the same. Telling McNair "no" means she did not ask the correct question to win a "yes." Not only is she helping others to grow their busi...
Sep 05, 2023•25 min
A major debate post the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic centers on workplace productivity in a remote workspace. Sumit Gupta is an executive leadership coach and founder of the Deploy Yourself School of Leadership. He is an expert in helping teams achieve exponential results while working together with joy, meaning and satisfaction. The key to this success Sumit argues is listening to your team. Also on the show today is Kathleen Bertrand, Executive Producer of the Bronze Lens Film Festival in Atlan...
Aug 28, 2023•45 min
Ronnie Mabra is a community servant. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2013 to 1016. He's an alum of both the Georgia Tech Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia School of Law. He's an attorney with a heart for service - to his clients and to his community. The Fayetteville native is the son of a small businessman who also played in the NFL. His mother taught school. They poured the values of education and leadership into Ronnie early on and it shows in how he...
Aug 14, 2023•20 min
The COVID-19 pandemic affected everyone, especially kids. For Kyallan Parker the challenges were great - transitioning from a private school to virtual learning to eventually a public school. Kyallan was quiet and withdrawn and about to be labeled as a student with a behavior problem. His mother Krystle knew that he liked to journal and she encouraged him to do so. Later the pair learned that Kyallan battled ADHD, attention deficit hyperactive disorder and attention deficit disorder. Three year ...
Aug 14, 2023•24 min
