Season One | Episode 9
Episode Nine: Facing the Past
Hosted by Dan Gediman and Loretta Williams. Featuring interviews with Sadiqa Reynolds, Dr. Ricky Jones, Dr. Kidada Williams, Dr. Anita Fernander, and Dr. William Darity.
There are clear lines that connect the legacy of slavery to many of our present day issues, including the racial inequities of COVID-19 infection and deaths, wealth inequality, and ongoing police brutality. A true and deep understanding of our history allows us to navigate the present moment and stop running away from the past. Episode Transcript
Guests
Sadiqa N. Reynolds, esq.
Sadiqa Reynolds is the President and CEO of Louisville Urban League, the first woman to hold this title in the affiliate’s 95-year history.
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Sadiqa Reynolds is the President and CEO of Louisville Urban League. Her appointment made her the first woman to hold this title in the affiliate’s 95-year history. She has previously served as Chief for Community Building in the Office of the Mayor where she oversaw approximately 1500 employees. Sadiqa serves on several boards including Fund for the Arts, the Louisville Chamber, WAVE3 Editorial Board, WDRD Advisory Board and is a Director for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
She has served as District Judge for the 30th Judicial Court. She was also the first African American woman to clerk for the Kentucky Supreme Court when she served as Chief Law Clerk for the late Chief Justice Robert F. Stephens. Her life as a public servant also includes being the first African American to serve as Inspector General for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Services.
Prior to entering the public sector, Sadiqa owned and managed her private legal practice. Her practice included criminal litigation, employment law, death penalty litigation and serving as Guardian Ad Litem representing abused, neglected and dependent children as well as arguing successfully before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. She has also been recognized by the Louisville Bar Association for providing pro bono hours in which she represented domestic violence victims and other disadvantaged citizens.
Sadiqa earned her BA in Psychology from the University of Louisville and her law degree from the University of Kentucky. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Bates Memorial Baptist Church.
She is an advocate for mental health awareness and received the 2017 Community Leader of the Year Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness because of her work to reduce the stigma around mental health. She is also a proponent for Restorative Justice and participated in the face it campaign to end child abuse.
Under her leadership, the Louisville Urban League is committed to jobs, justice, education, health and housing. She has been featured on CNN’s Headline News for the Louisville Urban League’s work on the State of Black Louisville and been a guest on FOX News as well as the national Funky Politics podcast.
Sadiqa is a much sought-after speaker who has been recognized as a Business First Enterprising Woman to Watch and a Woman of Influence. She has been honored with a Tower Award, a Torch of Wisdom and named a Daughter of Greatness by the Muhammad Ali Center. She’s received the Fannie Lou Hamer award, for her commitment to justice and in 2016 was recognized as BizWomen’s Business Journal top 100 women to watch nationally. She was also recognized for her housing advocacy work by the Mortgage Banker’s Association and in 2017 was recognized as Louisville’s Communicator of the Year. Just this year she was honored to be named a recipient of the Gertrude E. Rush Award by the National Bar Association.
She has been featured on public radio, television and numerous print media outlets including the NY Times. She has two beautiful daughters Sydney, 8th grade and Wynter, 6th grade, both being educated in public schools. Sadiqa has received two honorary Doctorates, one from Spalding University and the other from Simmons College of Kentucky. Sadiqa Reynolds was the 2017 Louisville Magazine Person of Year and a 2018 National Urban League Woman of Power.
Dr. Ricky L. Jones
Dr. Ricky L. Jones is Professor and Chair of the University of Louisville’s Department of Pan-African Studies.
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Dr. Ricky L. Jones is Professor and Chair of the University of Louisville’s Department of Pan-African Studies. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Jones was educated as an undergraduate at the U.S. Naval Academy, Morehouse College (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s alma mater). He was only the second African-American to receive a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Kentucky where he specialized in Political Philosophy and Comparative Politics. His books include: two editions of “Black Haze: Violence, Sacrifice, and Manhood in Black Greek-Letter Fraternities” and “What’s Wrong with Obamamania?: Black America, Black Leadership, and the Death of Political Imagination.”
He is currently co-authoring a new book with attorney and award-winning cartoonist Marc Murphy titled, “Kaepernick, Confederates, and Con-Artists.” He has written hundreds of scholarly and magazine articles, book chapters and opinion columns.
Dr. Jones has served as a local, national, and international social and political analyst across various media including appearances on HBO, CNN, Fox News, ESPN, the Travel Channel, a variety of NPR and PBS programs, the BBC, E! Entertainment, the Katie (Couric) Show, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, and many others. He is the host of the “Erasing History’ Podcast and the “Ricky Jones Show” from iHeart Media. The “Ricky Jones Show” was named Best of Louisville’s 2017 “Best Radio Show.”
He is a contributing opinion columnist for the Courier-Journal and USA Today Network for which he was named 2018 “best editorial/opinion columnist” by the Society of Professional Journalists.
Among many other honors, Jones has been named one of Louisville’s 25 Future Leaders by Louisville Magazine and was also recognized as one of DIVERSE Issues in Higher Education’s “25 to Watch in Academia.” He is a life-member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
Visit him at: www.rickyljones.com
Follow on Twitter: @DrRickyLJones
Dr. Anita Fernander
Anita Fernander is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Science in the College of Medicine at the University of Kentucky, as well as Founder & Chair of the Lexington-Fayette County Health Disparities Coalition.
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Anita Fernander is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Science in the College of Medicine at the University of Kentucky. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Health Psychology from the University of Miami, has a Master’s Degree in the same and holds two Bachelor’s degrees (one in Physical Education and the other in Psychology) from Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) an HBCU in Huntsville, Alabama. Prior to arriving at the University of Kentucky she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Medical Psychology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.
Her primary area of research and teaching has focused on examining the impact of race-related stress on health disparities among African Americans. She teaches the following courses: “Race, Racism and Health Disparities among Blacks in the U.S.”, “The History of Medicine among Blacks in the U.S.: Implications for Health Disparities” and “Introduction to Clinical Medicine”.
Her current scholarly passion is focused on increasing the number of under-represented minorities in medicine, training and mentoring students and faculty regarding cultural humility, and promoting diversity, inclusivity, and equity in academic medicine. She is also Founder & Chair of the Lexington-Fayette County Health Disparities Coalition.
Kidada Williams
Kidada E. Williams is an author and associate professor of History at Wayne State University.
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Kidada E. Williams is a historian and author who researches the history of African American survivors of racist violence. She is the author of They Left Great Marks on Me and co-editor of Charleston Syllabus. She is finishing I Saw Death Coming, a book about African American families held captive by the Klan during Reconstruction. She lives, works, and plays in Detroit.
William A. Darity, Jr.
William A. Darity, Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University.
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William A. (“Sandy”) Darity Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. He has served as chair of the Department of African and African American Studies and was the founding director of the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality at Duke. Previously he served as director of the Institute of African American Research, director of the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, director of the Undergraduate Honors Program in economics, and director of Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina. at Chapel Hill.
Darity’s research focuses on inequality by race, class and ethnicity, stratification economics, schooling and the racial achievement gap, North-South theories of trade and development, skin shade and labor market outcomes, the economics of reparations, the Atlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution, the history of economics, and the social psychological effects of exposure to unemployment.
He was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (2015-2016), a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2011-2012) at Stanford, a fellow at the National Humanities Center (1989-90) and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors (1984). He received the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award in 2012 from the National Economic Association, the organization’s highest honor, Politico 50 recognition in 2017, and an award from Global Policy Solutions in 2017. He is a past president of the National Economic Association and the Southern Economic Association. He also has taught at Grinnell College, the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Texas at Austin, Simmons College and Claremont-McKenna College.
He has served as Editor in Chief of the latest edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, (Macmillan Reference, 2008) and as an Associate Editor of the 2006 edition of the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism (2013).
His most recent book, coauthored with A. Kirsten Mullen, is From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century (2020). Previous books include For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Education (2010) (co-edited Tressie McMillan Cottom), Economics, Economists, and Expectations: Microfoundations to Macroapplications (2004) (co-authored with Warren Young and Robert Leeson), and Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity (2003) (co-edited with Ashwini Deshpande).He has published or edited 13 books and published more than300 articles in professional outlets.
Darity’s research focuses on inequality by race, class and ethnicity, stratification economics, schooling and the racial achievement gap, North-South theories of trade and development, skin shade and labor market outcomes, the economics of reparations, the Atlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution, the history of economics, and the social psychological effects of exposure to unemployment.
He was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (2015-2016), a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2011-2012) at Stanford, a fellow at the National Humanities Center (1989-90) and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors (1984). He received the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award in 2012 from the National Economic Association, the organization’s highest honor, Politico 50 recognition in 2017, and an award from Global Policy Solutions in 2017. He is a past president of the National Economic Association and the Southern Economic Association. He also has taught at Grinnell College, the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Texas at Austin, Simmons College and Claremont-McKenna College.
He has served as Editor in Chief of the latest edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, (Macmillan Reference, 2008) and as an Associate Editor of the 2006 edition of the Encyclopedia of Race and Racism (2013).
His most recent book, coauthored with A. Kirsten Mullen, is From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century (2020). Previous books include For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Education (2010) (co-edited Tressie McMillan Cottom), Economics, Economists, and Expectations: Microfoundations to Macroapplications (2004) (co-authored with Warren Young and Robert Leeson), and Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity (2003) (co-edited with Ashwini Deshpande).He has published or edited 13 books and published more than300 articles in professional outlets.
Episode Bibliography
Learn more about slavery and its lasting effects in America by exploring the source materials referenced in The Reckoning. Our bibliography contains many items that are available to read or download for free. If you choose to purchase any of the books through the links provided, as an Amazon Associate, our non-profit organization Reckoning, Inc. earns commissions from qualifying purchases.
Darity, William, and Mullen, Kirsten. (paid link) “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century”. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
Fernander, A., Duran, R., Saab, P. and Schneiderman, N. (2004). “John Henry Active Coping, education, and blood pressure among urban blacks”. Journal of the National Medical Association, 96(2), 246-255.
Fernander, A., Durán, R., Saab, P., Llabre, M. and Schneiderman, N. (2003) “Assessing the reliability and validity of the John Henry Scale for Active Coping among an urban sample of African-Americans and white-Americans”. Ethnicity and Health, 8(2), 147-161.
Williams, Kidada E. (paid link) They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I. New York: NYU Press, 2012.
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