BILAL: Urban Consulate Presents is made possible by the generous support of: BILAL: Hello and welcome once again to this collaboration between Urban Consulate and CET/PBS.

My name is Naimah Bilal, one of the co-hosts of Urban Consulate Cincinnati.

Today, as we mark the Juneteenth holiday we welcome you into a conversation around stories of liberation.

Juneteenth, short for June 19th and also known as Freedom Day, is an observance commemorating the emancipation of enslaved black people in Texas.

But the story goes deeper.

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, which was signed by President Abraham Lincoln, officially took effect.

But treasonous leaders of the Confederate states, they didn't want to free some 4 million slaves still held captive.

After all, these states fought a whole civil war to maintain slavery because of the immense wealth that this barbaric enterprise brought them.

It wasn't until June 19th, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, that union General Gordon Granger brought the declaration there and enforced it.

We're all familiar with Juneteenth, but for our western Kentucky neighbors, the 8th of August holds similar meaning of remembrance.

And there are different dates in other states with similar meanings.

Emancipation fell far short of liberation then.

What about now?

The gap between oppression and freedom endures to today because the control of black bodies really never ended.

White supremacy endures, fueled by the many systems that have successfully held it in place.

So here lies the terrain of our discussion today.

You ready?

As always, we invite you to engage around the ideas we are exploring and lean in to the substance of our sojourn together.

To do that, you can visit UrbanConsulate.com/Cincinnati, or CETConnect.org/UrbanConsulate for more information and resources about today's topic.

Let's get to it.

[ Music: Sankofa (Ase) by Triiibe ] Good, or it may be something bad, but whatever you do, know what happened behind you so it will help you when you go forward.

BILAL: The Ohio River is one of the longest in the US.

It reflects the natural beauty of our region, though it also eliminates haunting echoes of our national history.

It's a channel of leisure, it's a channel of commerce, but not so long ago for some Americans it was a borderline, a line between slavery in the south and a hope for freedom in the north.

For black people living in America more than a century and a half ago, crossing this river not only meant escaping physical bondage, through this heroic and dangerous act, they were also reclaiming their full humanity, the expression of which had been circumscribed by the barbarism of American slavery.

Through many battles waged to ensure our full citizenship we are ostensibly free, though the questions remain: How do we define freedom and what does the quest for freedom look like in the lives of everyday black people?

How far have we really come?

And how much farther do we have to go to achieve liberation?

To help us navigate the idea of liberation and the continued push for freedom from systems, mindsets are four wonderfully insightful guests.

To my right, Dr. Tia Sheree Gaynor is founding director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation and assistant professor in political science at the University of Cincinnati.

Next, we have the Honorable Fanon Rucker, who many might recognize from the most recent district attorney race in Hamilton County or from his long time service locally.

The judge has seen multiple levels of the court system in action, both from behind the bench and from an attorney's perspective.

Our third panelist is Aprina Johnson, also known as Aprina's Revolutionary Love.

She's a revolutionary and musical spirit specializing in the art of radical love.

She is a professional of people empowerment and is fueled by the simple power of compassion.

And rounding out our group is another wonderful creative mind, Michael Coppage.

Michael is a mixed media and conceptual artist that started in Chicago, but has been living in Cincinnati for some time now.

His work can be seen in galleries, on walls, and streets around town and even overseas.

Thank you all so much for joining us today.

It's great to be here with you.

I want to start from the beginning because we are talking about a big topic.

So let's set some definitions together.

And I'm curious to know from each of you, and I want to start with you, Fanon, what does liberation mean to you?

RUCKER: It's an interesting question.

Let me say that for everybody, just about on every topic, our foundation lends to our understanding of terms.

So my foundation, I'm a kid of the '70s.

I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana.

My parents were very active in the civil rights movement.

The more observant side of it, my name is Fanon because I didn't change when I was in college, but my parents named me Fanon Adeyemi Rucker.

So my perspective on what liberation means has to do with how I was born, how I was raised, who I was around, what I saw, what my parents instilled in me.

To me, liberation is about being comfortable in yourself, being comfortable in your speech, being comfortable in how you exist and move in this world.

Liberation, particularly when we talk about black liberation, means to me to not be afraid to be who you are in your blackness.

That's what it means to me.

BILAL: Tia, what about you?

GAYNOR: Yeah.

So building off of foundations, right?

My research is centered on social justice, issues of equity, my work is transitioning into racial healing.

So when I think about liberation, I'm really thinking about the ability to be one's authentic self.

Right?

To be able to move freely and think freely, to be imaginative, to be able to navigate society without external social controls, to be able to navigate the world without white supremacy, without capitalism, without heteronormativity and homophobia.

Right?

Really to be able to arrive in a space and be your authentic self without people and systems determining what your outcomes are and where you can go, what limitations you have or don't have.

BILAL: Extraordinary definitions, love it.

What about you, Michael?

COPPAGE: I think liberation for me is the freedom to navigate the world without others' projections, without others expecting something negative to be born from just your presence.

In a lot of ways, the work that I make addresses those issues.

And I think that even the ability to discuss those issues in the form of my work is extremely liberating for me because often times there's no real reception for what might otherwise be a topic of discussion for me.

I really think that the ability to navigate freely without the assumption that you're up to something ill or ill will is at the heart of liberation for me.

BILAL: What about you?

JOHNSON: Liberation, power to the people.

My entire life has been built around liberating people.

So the family I grew up in, we spent our time welcoming strangers, neighbors, enemies, haters into our house and to our family, helping free people.

Now, we weren't a nonprofit or anything like that.

It was just an old school hospitality type of thing.

And at this point in time in my life, I understand, like all of us here and many of us, some of us may not, that liberation and freedom is multidimensional.

It's spiritual, it's mental, it's physical, it's financial, it's creatively.

So that's how I frame it and look at it.

And I also feel personally, for me, it's important that I liberate myself while I simultaneously liberate others.

BILAL: And this is incredible because there are several distinct definitions that we all share, and yet there is a thread that threads them all together, which is like freedom to be, you know, on every level.

You know, Fanon, you bring an incredible perspective to this conversation, right?

Your decades on the bench and working as an attorney, you're literally operating at the focal point of where a lot of us associate freedom, liberation.

Right?

The justice system.

Others may have other words for it.

Right?

So can you give us a sense as to what does liberation mean to you within that space?

RUCKER: First, let me be clear.

I know we say decades, but I'm not quite that old.

I'll be 50 a little later this year, you know what I'm saying?

So my decades in would have been when I was eight.

But certainly as a lawyer, I have been practicing for over 20 years.

But my ideas about the justice system was shaped in the same way long before I stepped foot inside of a law school and certainly long before I had my first case file.

It was the same perspective that so many of us have because of how I grew up and where I grew up.

It was the same perspective that I and so many of us had because of the movies that we watched and because of the experience of family members.

And so what I suggest to people is about how we change the systems, because we're talking about systems and systems are huge and nebulous.

And they look at numbers.

They don't look at individuals, because once they start looking at individuals, they have to start changing how they move.

But what I encourage about us being free and being liberated as a people has to in some way focus on that system, that justice system, that big monstrosity of an intentional oppressor.

Oppressor, because that's what it is.

It's an oppressing device.

And in many instances, it's dealing on a design that was intended to deal with us more oppressively than the entire culture of the society that we live in.

So how do I see it?

So I've been a judge.

Before I was a judge I was a civil rights lawyer and a lawyer representing cities and individuals.

Before that, I was a prosecutor.

I've been a leader of legal societies and communities.

I've been a statewide leader of judges helping to create programs and address different issues in our system.

The freedom or liberation of our people as it relates to the justice system itself has to mean the dismantling and the reshaping of the system for it to operate in a different way, for it to have different objectives and end games.

Because the system is not broken; it operates like it was intended to, to mask people and to compartmentalize them and to predict their behavior by putting them away until they decide they want to lock them up again after they let them out for a little while, telling them what they have to do while they're out, which is impossible.

Liberation has to be a redesigning of that system, how it operates and who actually are making the decisions about how it operates.

BILAL: Mmmmm, transforming a conscious carceral system into one that is liberated.

Oh, what a vision.

Tia, so in addition to your professorship at the University of Cincinnati, as we said before, you're the founder and director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation.

Can you give us a glimpse into the role you see healing, specifically racial healing, playing in our ability and work to seek liberation?

GAYNOR: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, healing for me is at the core of truly being free and liberated for everyone, not just black people, but for everyone.

And when you really look at it, white people are not liberated either.

I mean, we live in a capitalistic society.

If you are a slave to capitalism, you're not liberated.

Right?

But racial healing is at the core of liberation.

And so when we talk about racial healing, one of the very foundational components of that process is truth telling.

Right?

Being able to have open and honest and truthful conversations about an individual's experiences, the experiences of different social groups in our country, how white supremacy has operated to create this mythical narrative of hierarchy.

Right?

We have to be able to have open and honest conversations.

We have to be able to hold multiple truths at the same time.

Right?

We have different experiences.

That does it make your experience any less truthful than my experience, because that was not my experience, right?

And so when I think about liberation, it starts with being able to hold multiple truths, but also to be able to have honest conversations about who we are as a society, who we are as a country, what our systems really look like, how they were really designed, what their goals intentionally were.

And then we can work against, work towards dismantling them and work towards liberation.

BILAL: Mmmmm.

You know, it strikes me as, you know I like to use analogies.

Right?

When a doctor wants to heal a patient, first thing the doctor asks is she asks, "Where does it hurt?"

And then she examines it, right?

So telling the truth is what will get us to healing.

GAYNOR: Yes.

BILAL: And sometimes that hurts.

GAYNOR: It it hurts.

It's not easy.

It's challenging.

Right.

But with with your analogy, the doctor isn't just going to put a cast over your foot without examining the root cause of the issue.

BILAL: Exactly.

GAYNOR: We have not examined the root cause of the issues that have led our society where it is today.

And that's where liberation is.

BILAL: Mmmmm.

Oh, I'm really curious, so, Michael, when we talk about the artist's role in liberation, like the way I think about artists is they create these worlds that may or may not reflect reality, but they also cast sort of visionary view of the world that allows us to think.

So when I think about Octavia Butler, right?

Octavia Butler, brilliant science fiction writer.

And she said, "You know, the reason I write so much about power is because I have so little."

And so I'm curious to know, you know, how much for you, is liberation an act of transforming the imagination?

COPPAGE: I think all of it, I mean, it's all rooted in the hope that it's possible.

You know, we talk about the systems and those things that are in place.

And what I do is I look at how it impacts me and impacts our youth especially.

And I try to figure out really creative ways to highlight it, you know, in a way that's not divisive, but in a way that's constructive.

And in doing that, when people step into the work, they get it.

And I believe that liberation can only happen through small incremental changes.

It's not going to happen in one big swoop.

And so each piece is basically born from this toxic, festering experience that I've lived with for my entire life.

And each time I create something, you know, that well that that liquid lives in decreases, and the hope is to get to the bottom of it, externalize all of these, what would appear to be small things, and impact people in a way that changes -- that challenges them to change their behavior, that challenges them to change the system or do their part to change the system, and get to a place where, as Tia said earlier, we can all be liberated.

BILAL: Mmmm, mmmm.

That well analogy is sitting with me right now.

I think about the fresh -- like the ground water.

You know, Racial Equity Institute talks about the groundwater and how that is a metaphor for the system, seen and unseen that permeate these systems.

And as as your own well, flushing out the poison water, replenishing it with fresh clean water is a beautiful analogy.

Aprina, so -- and I told you this before, and I'm going to tell you again, because the way you talk about revolutionary love is so stirring as to be emotionally challenging for me, in the best ways, right?

No, no, really, the way you talk about it is extraordinary, right, and it gives me hope that there is a destiny of freedom that ends and revolutionary love.

And so can you talk about the place for the mind set of revolutionary love as we seek liberation, and what does that look like for you?

JOHNSON: It's so easy for us to look out and be like, "Look at all this that's happening.

This person is doing this and that," instead of looking deep down inside and saying, "What have I actually done to touch that place?"

And so the whole idea of revolutionary radical love is to check yourself first, get yourself in alignment.

You get activated, and then you go out and touch your family, the community, or like I always say, some of us are global leaders.

We're going to touch the world.

And this is the hardest part, I believe, for us human beings.

And that's why the system is the way that it is.

And you have to step in your role and you have to step in your roles, because individually, people don't want to take the responsibility.

They don't want to take the weight.

"Well, I'm black and they've already got the burden of racism and white supremacy.

So I don't want that."

And it's just like we're going to have to carry it, baby, and we're built for this.

So the whole -- Someone once said to me that catastrophe is one of the greatest fires to ignite you toward the gloominess and the wickedness of the world and go in it as a soldier and not just a cheerleader or a bystander.

And unfortunately, I have seen that with all the thousands of people that I work with, it is so true.

But just like you were saying, it's small, it's incrementally how this is going to happen and how this is really going to touch the world the way that it needs to revolutionary love.

And it's hard.

BILAL: Yeah, well -- JOHNSON: It's very hard.

It sounds beautiful, like, "Oh, revolutionary love, yes."

But it's hard because it means that you have to love, trust and respect yourself and then you have to open yourself up to do that with others.

BILAL: Right.

JOHNSON: Make room for others' stories, other people's truths.

BILAL: Yeah, our love is multidimensional.

Sometimes love is hard.

JOHNSON: Yes, it is.

BILAL: Especially when it comes to introspection.

JOHNSON: Yes.

BILAL: I mean that, that's tough.

JOHNSON: Yes.

BILAL: Yeah.

JOHNSON: And I believe that revolutionary love is the cure.

I believe it with every bit of me.

If someone can -- I'm a musician.

If someone can get up and tell you to lean and snap or throw your fingers up in the air, 50,000 people start doing that.

You can't tell me that if one person gets up there and they start leading something like this and we have this huge group of people who are doing this particular thing, it's contagious.

BILAL: Oh, yes, it is.

JOHNSON: You can't fight it.

BILAL: Yeah.

The universe wants us to be right.

My friend Cornetta Robertson says that the universe wants us to be right.

And if we put into the universe that we want to move and lead with love, you know, that's what attracts, right.

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

BILAL: I love it.

And you know it, but let's just keep it real, like it's hard to talk about love in the context of racism and white supremacy.

Right?

So I don't want to diminish like there's people dyeing, right?

People are being killed at the hands of a system that is so oppressive.

JOHNSON: Oh, yeah.

BILAL: And yet we understand that one dynamic, one component of eradicating that system is leaning into a space of love.

So, thank you.

JOHNSON: Yeah, definitely accountability as well, which is one of those hard parts when you have to come at the aggressor in a different way, it's less like, "Hey, how are you doing?

I love you, you're my brother, you're my sister."

You know, yeah, so definitely.

BILAL: Mmmm.

So, we're talking about liberation, right?

And you know, what I find so interesting about this conversation is that the moment you mention racism and white supremacy, some people's reactions are like, "Oh, but not me."

Right?

"Oh, but not me."

And so I feel like part of liberation for black folk is just having the freedom to name the thing.

Right?

And so when we talk about things like racism and white supremacy, how can we raise people's sights to see racism for the systemic juggernaut it is and not just associate it with, you know, hooded Klans people and people spewing bigoted language?

You know, it's so much more than that.

Can you speak to the power of the liberation of language just to be able to, I mean, you look at -- I'll start with you, Tia.

You know, the critical race theory movement is under attack for one reason, because they want to study, examine, and transform a system of white supremacy and racism.

GAYNOR: And for some academics, right, there was a ban on using certain words, right?

Because of the previous administration.

Right?

And so you couldn't do trainings or you couldn't include certain kind of language because critical race theory or anything that was perceived to be what some people thought was critical race theory when they really didn't understand critical race theory.

Right?

But I mean so, you know, there -- When we're talking about liberation and we're talking about words, right, and narratives.

When you think about the history of our country, narratives are so critically important because narratives have been used to determine who is worthy, who's not worthy, who's the ingroup, who's the outgroup, who deserve the burdens of policies, who should get the advantage of policies.

Right?

So narratives are so important.

And we use narratives in our country in a way to oppress.

And then we also want to limit use of narratives to continue oppression, to reduce liberation and freedom.

Right?

And so being able to call a thing a thing is so important.

Like, I remember I was in, you know, a large group having a conversation and we were talking about white supremacy came up and racism came up.

And someone in the group was like, "Well, maybe if we just called it something else."

And I'm like, "If we called it a chair, you wouldn't be happy with what we were talking about."

Like, let's call a thing a thing and be able to have open, honest conversations.

If we can't name something, we can't talk about it honestly.

We can't talk about how it impacts people's lives.

We can't talk about the decades and centuries of oppression and marginalization that has happened.

Right?

So let's all engage in this freedom, in this liberation of narrative and discourse so that we can engage in these open and honest conversations.

BILAL: Oh, yes.

Let's add clarity, shed light on it.

Right?

GAYNOR: Let's just call it what it is.

BILAL: Call it what it is.

I'm curious about your perspective on that, Fanon, calling a thing a thing.

RUCKER: So one of the impediments to liberation for black folks with regard to the system has been the inability to obtain justice.

And so it's been with legal system, it's been justice systems, it's been political system.

But those have as a source the inability to go to the place where on the outside of the courthouse walls are all of these quotes about how justice and mercy and freedom and equality are the foundations and basis.

And then inside the doors, that's not what's been happening.

That's not been the Cincinnati thing; that's been a universal thing.

And it's been universal along lines of people that look like us and also the economically oppressed folks in this world.

The verdict in Derek Chauvin's case involving George Floyd, that was a step towards liberation because it was an acknowledgment by a large swath of people, police officers who were testifying that their fellow brother was incorrect and wrong in his murderous actions.

The judge, in ensuring that the evidence that caused the verdict, was actually opened.

The lawyers who, one black, one white, who were prosecutors who were taking on the case and were prosecuting, the array of witnesses who all look like different folks from the community all testifying, that was a step towards liberation because it was an acknowledgment of what the cries have been for so long that have gone unresponded to.

The verdict in Trayvon Martin was not a step toward justice.

That was one of the impediments.

But the more we have Derek Chauvins in our system, the more we have outcomes in Breonna Taylor's case, the more we have outcomes, like there was a police officer who yesterday was found guilty for kidnapping.

He get a lot of news, but the more we have those, the more there are steps towards that liberation, because it's a step towards acknowledging that there has been oppression within that system.

BILAL: Mmmm.

Look, we knew this conversation was going to be dynamic, but I'm sitting in my seat, like, stirred from the amount of truth that's coming from you, from everybody here.

So as this discussion indicates, you know, stories of liberation are felt and felt deeply and broadly, but they're also very personal.

They're unique and they are powerful.

Today, we have the privilege of diving even deeper into the mind of one of our guests, Michael Coppage.

Take a look.

COPPAGE: Liberation for me is the ability to make works of art that depict the black experience without fear of retribution, physical harm or persecution, to speak my mind, to facilitate discussions, using my work as a vehicle to tell stories about black men and black people that promote lasting societal change in both language and action.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago.

Art helped me escape the environmental pitfalls of adolescence and offered me a way out by creating an alternate path, a path where I explored music, drawing and dance.

My father, like many, wanted me to play sports in high school.

I imagine he was disappointed when I chose to pursue the arts.

Growing up, I never had a conversation about my future after high school, but as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be an artist.

I remember how liberating it felt as a young man to receive an art scholarship to attend college.

I suddenly had a future.

I was given a chance.

I was hopeful in the face of the adversity that was to come.

It's common knowledge that black people are disproportionately imprisoned, oppressed, and suffer from long term effects of slavery.

For many of us, liberation can only happen in the mind where our thoughts are always free.

My work depicts the endurance and resiliency black Americans embody in order to navigate the institutional norms that negatively affect our ability to be truly liberated The action of holding on and weathering the storm is a practice passed down from generation to generation.

It speaks to the inner strength and determination we possess as a people.

The goal has always been liberation.

Historical drama, cultural appropriation, stigmatization and alienation, disproportionate legal challenges, poor access to health care, residents of food deserts all rooted in anti liberation, destabilization.

In a time past, where liberty and justice was in its infancy, this work would not be possible.

Freedom didn't start when slavery ended.

Slavery never ended; it adapted.

Therefore, my work needs to be adaptive in order to get at the heart of the issues related to the black experience.

I'm not limited to one material.

The concept driving my work dictates the medium and ultimately liberates me from being a one dimensional artist.

Shifting my focus away from barriers and toward solutions, resolutions and discourse, my work has created a therapeutic space I would describe as liberating.

It's the only time I feel free, liberated from anger, liberated from hate, liberated from depression and anxiety, liberated from negative self talk.

True freedom.

Am I not weighed down by dark clouds?

A mind free of dark skin and of dark thoughts.

I choose to focus on the silver linings and follow the glimpses of light that chart the path towards liberation.

BILAL: What an honest and raw dive into Michael's creative mind and lived experience.

And that music, that amazing music was created by an absolutely wonderful musician that calls Cincinnati home, my friend Preston B. Charles, III.

You can regularly find him playing around downtown or at Findlay Market as part of Cincinnati Music Accelerator's Street Stage Project.

If you can't see him in person, you can also find him on YouTube and Facebook.

We'll put a link in the show page so you can connect with his other great work and upcoming projects.

So, we continue with our dialogue.

And you know, Michael, when I think about the world of visual art, you know, I think about a world that is sustained by, you know, high net worth, ultra high net worth patrons.

And sometimes there is this dynamic that emerges that's like, "I pay, I say.

I commission you.

You create a piece."

How do you, as a visual artist, keep your voice in tact and how do you feel free to ensure that your vision is unencumbered by, you know, traditional arts patronage?

COPPAGE: Yeah, well, I think we live in a very nontraditional time.

Right?

And I guess the current movement and we find ourselves in has open doors or at least cracks in doors for artists like myself and other artists of color to really get their hands on the finances, to kind of project their own voices.

I think traditionally museums, galleries are the gatekeepers and black voices are quieter in those spaces.

I find myself fortunate because I've been able to get a few grants that allow me to do what I want to do unencumbered.

I also on the patrons side, I had to leave the United States.

In fact, one of my benefactors who is based in Singapore, provided me with enough funds to work for a year, uninterrupted, unencumbered, unconcerned with what the institution in the canon might prefer or want, and instead focus on what it was that I wanted to communicate.

He and I have since developed a really great friendship.

I've probably, pre-pandemic, been there four times.

And so I think there's a certain amount of empowerment that came from having the freedom to create that put me in a place where I now, when I partner with institutions, expect to be able to speak from my own vision, my -- to share images of born of my own creation.

I rarely accept commissions.

You know?

The days of painting dogs and bridges is long gone.

And I think that I'm fortunate because I've been able to find a path that continues to provide opportunities for me to really express myself and discuss narratives and topics that are of interest to me and importance to me.

BILAL: Mmmmm.

Amazing to see how that shows up.

I mean, that's a blessing, right?

COPPAGE: Yeah.

BILAL: So I want to dig into the meat and substance of our dreams and our imaginations, right?

And some of that is recalling, you know, our lived experience.

And you know, black people, we don't always -- we're not always called upon to share.

And so I'm going to call upon each of you to share.

Fanon, I'm really curious, and this is a question for everybody here.

When is a time that you can recall, or moments that you can recall, where you felt most liberated and the most free that you've ever felt?

Can you recall a time?

RUCKER: Yeah, interestingly, it actually came about in November of 2020.

And it's been a period.

I have never felt more free than I did after I lost the election.

And I was hurt and I was upset.

I was shocked, I still am in shock.

Oh, goodness gracious.

I don't understand how.

But the idea that I'm not under the microscope of public life like I used to be, like, I don't have to be careful about what I'm typing on Facebook, Instagram.

I can type away and be free in my thoughts.

I'm not restricted by what I have to worry about how somebody else is going to interpret about my beliefs or my ideas or my words.

That is freeing.

It is liberating.

It is freedom.

And so I have not felt more free since, well that's the time that I felt most free is when I actually lost the election, because I am unobstructed in who I am and how I live and what I believe, what I say.

Right?

BILAL: Yeah.

Well, as someone who cast a vote for you, I feel, you know, I feel kind of better about that now.

I wanted you to win.

But does it -- Tia, tell us about a moment where you felt the most free, liberated.

GAYNOR: Yeah.

So, you know, I navigate this world as a black woman married to a black woman, a social justice researcher.

Right?

That's very critical of systems and institutions as they currently are.

And so I often -- I routinely have to wear a mask.

I routinely have to be very aware of how I arrive in a space, what the perceptions might be when I arrive in that space, how I speak, what words do I say, the inflection in which I say those words, the volume in which I say those words, because I am navigating so many systems of oppression when when I walk outside of my home door.

And so when I think about the space in which I feel most liberated and most free, it's home.

I can be myself.

I can love on my wife the way in which I want to love on my wife and not worry about stares, looks of disapprovement or disgust.

I can have conversations freely.

I can say the words that I want to say, how I want to say, I can curse as often as I want to say, as I want to.

And so home really is a haven for me.

BILAL: See, now that is power right there.

But we think of liberation, it doesn't have to be this sort of monumental thing.

It can be something as beautiful and intimate as the home.

GAYNOR: Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Michael, you spoke about liberation in terms of one's mind and being free in your mind, right?

I mean, it's not -- it doesn't have to be this grand thing.

I mean, of course, we want that liberation, too.

But to Aprina's point, right, liberation is complex and multilayered and it's not just one thing.

BILAL: Let's go to Aprina.

So tell us about a time.

JOHNSON: Whooo!

BILAL: Oh, adjust the glasses?

JOHNSON: Yeah.

Home is the place that I feel free and I can be myself, everybody knows exactly who I am.

Music is the place where I feel very liberated.

Community organizing, artists organizing, creative place making, any of that.

But 2020 was a year, and I spent my whole life fighting the fight as far as I'm looking at it.

And I've always had people come and write letters, emails just do amazing things, accolades.

But last year was different when I was standing in front of 10,000 people and I knew that what I had been doing my whole life was right, it was good, it was righteous.

And I broke through last summer in a way that I never have before.

And affirmation is very important to all of us to feel liberated, to be free, whether it's one big time or multiple times throughout our lives.

And so I'm trying to hold back tears because my mascara is not waterproof.

Some people out there that want freedom and that don't really know how to move about making it happen, they're there.

And so I go to sleep at night knowing that people are there, that eventually we're all going to rise up.

I know it with every bit of me.

I'm going to see it before I die.

I know it, so, yeah.

BILAL: Mmmm, I feel that.

That's deeply felt.

Michael, what about you?

COPPAGE: Well, I mean, I've always kind of felt trapped, right?

Trapped in the options of the things that I could be, you know, the entertainer, the athlete, or the criminal.

Right?

The boxes that we see of ourselves.

And it's even kind of been reinforced in my family growing up.

You know, I think that when I first talked about becoming an artist, I disappointed my family, you know?

And so for me, you know, coming from a family where my dad was a superstar high school athlete, I could imagine that he believed that there wasn't a place in the arts for me.

And I had, in my mind, you know, I had to to believe that there was, you know?

I saw the potential for the freedom to escape my situation.

In fact, you know, I got a scholarship that moved me out of a neighborhood that I probably moved out of at the right time, you know?

And so I think for me, it happens in my mind initially.

But mentally, it's one thing.

Physically, I don't -- I think that I've only ever felt true freedom abroad, you know, just leaving the whole system behind.

You know?

In a system where, you know, I've seen people apologize just for standing next to me or grabbing their kids up or tucking their purse or their telephone or whatever, you know, those things kind of build up.

There's a certain amount of weight that you carry day to day, as opposed to some of my experiences abroad.

You know, people walk up to me and they give their children to me to take pictures with me.

They, instead of crossing the street and walking away from me, they walk towards me.

They're drawn to me.

And if you can imagine, you know, how that might make you feel a complete reversal.

It created a desire to continue to travel.

So to date I've been to 40 countries.

And that list is growing because it's the only time that I truly feel a sense of freedom, except for the random freestyle sessions I have with my friends and stuff.

But physically and I have -- I feel, that I have to leave and I have to have some balance, you know, and get some perspective and come back with more dimension, you know, and maybe a better sense of self in the grand scheme of the world and less of the American view.

BILAL: Mmmm.

Stunning, stunning.

I mean, it reminds me of the stories that we hear of black GIs going to fight in Europe in World War I and coming back having experienced what it was like not to be marked as black men and coming here and like, naw, like I have gotten a dose of what it feels like to have some kind of liberation.

And so, you know, their own quest for freedom was ignited by exiting the system.

COPPAGE: Yeah.

BILAL: This conversation has just taking us on a journey in a very short amount of time.

And as we always like to do, you know, we like to try and end on a note of hope and on a note of optimism, wherever that may lie.

And so the question for each of you is: If we agree, and we have to agree, if we agree that freedom, that liberation is our destiny, everybody's destiny, what do your dreams reveal about your hopes for the future of liberation for black people in our nation?

Let's start with Fanon.

RUCKER: You know, there is a, as we've been talking about with the last question, there's individual liberation and then there's corporal liberation.

And so I think that the question that you're asking has to do with our hope or our vision or expectation of that corporal liberation, because each of us has own path to find it for ourselves.

But for me personally, it's being in positions where I can help others to experience or to see it, whether that's from the words that I speak or whether that's by an example.

I have a 22 year old daughter.

I have an 18 year old son who's about to step out into the world.

And the same conversations that my father had to have with me, I have to have with my son, my baby boy, about how he moves out here.

But everything about what I've done really for about the past 20 years has been about being an example to them, about how those chains can be breaking and they can live in whoever it is they want to be without having the oppressive ideals of being top on the list of diabetes and being the top on the list on high blood pressure and being the top on the list-- I mean, the bottom of the list when it comes to, you know, acknowledgment or being accessible to resources and jobs and things like that.

That to me is about continuing to be an example of and an advocate for freedom for the corporal, because it affects in the best way the ones who are my seeds, who come right behind me, who who are the direct beneficiaries of whatever struggle that I engage, and my father and his father and his father before him and going all the way back to Dred Scott.

But that's another issue for another day.

But at any rate, that's my hopes and my dreams is to continue to be an example and to continue to advocate for others so that they can see in them the idea that it is possible and how good it feels to be free.

GAYNOR: My turn?

BILAL: Yeah.

GAYNOR: So I'm going to tap into the brilliance of Angela Davis.

BILAL: Yes, please.

GAYNOR: Because she offers a challenge to think about freedom that I wanted to share.

And there's no way possible I could say anything that would be better than what Angela Davis said.

So, I'm just going to read her words.

She says: And so when I think about that, right, I want us to really consider Angela Davis' challenge for us to imagine a new way.

BILAL: Mmmm.

Whoo, spoken so beautifully, thank you for sharing those words.

Mmm, Mmm, Mmm.

Michael?

COPPAGE: What that new way is, I'm not sure, but I definitely want to be a part of it.

Like I said, I believe that I'm doing my part to help realize that.

I believe it's possible.

I believe that there are things that have happened in my lifetime that I thought were unimaginable, you know, African-American president, amongst other things.

So is liberation possible?

Of course.

But it's going to take the education system, it's going to take the judicial system, it's going to take the art canon, it's going to take all of the cultural institutions and everyone really taken that job serious enough to really dismantle some of the barriers that we have in place.

But when we get there, for me it'll look like -- it'll look like spaces that I walk into where I always feel like I belong, to put it simply.

BILAL: Mmmm.

JOHNSON: I understand that evil has been around for a very long time, so I know that we will not be able to completely dismantle it.

But I met Obama in 2007.

It was a wonderful experience.

And one thing that I know for each of us in this room is that when we are exposed to power, when we're able to connect with power, we are empowered.

And so that for me is something that I am hoping and working aggressively toward.

And I know there's others out there that are also working toward that, sharing power, making power way more accessible, educating people on how to distribute it, how to handle it, because we all deserve it, definitely deserve it.

So sharing power.

BILAL: And ultimately, you know, liberation is not sort of just in and of itself like a singular endeavor.

Our liberation, as I said, is interlocked, right?

Is bound up together.

So sharing power is certainly a powerful way to get us there.

I want to thank each of you for joining me in this incredible dialogue today.

Thank you for not just sharing your minds, but sharing your hearts and your soul and the most interior parts of yourselves.

It means a lot.

GAYNOR: Thank you.

JOHNSON, COPPAGE, RUCKER: Thank you.

JOHNSON: This was fun.

COPPAGE: Glad to be here.

BILAL: Liberation: a word that carries universal meaning understood by all of humanity, but as we found in today's conversation, the ways in which it manifests itself, the ways that liberation shows up are far from universal, especially for black people in our nation.

So as we hold space for remembrance of liberation in our mind, let's also allow our minds to ponder these big ideas: And also, our efforts to free ourselves from racial oppression are interlocked together, bound up in the communal drive toward peace, love, and a thriving world for all people.

So what's your liberation story?

What do your dreams reveal about what abundant liberation can look like for all people?

How will you activate your own personal and communal quest for liberation?

Remember, these conversations will continue so you can find out about Urban Consulate's upcoming live and virtual events every second Monday of the month at UrbanConsulate.com/Cincinnati.

They're hosted by myself or my fellow co-host, Megan Tishler.

You can also find information about this program at CETConnect.org/UrbanConsulate.

Until next time, for Urban Consulate and our partners at CET/PBS, I'm Naimah Bilal.

Good night.

[ MUSIC: Sankofa (Ase) by Triiibe ] Captions: Maverick Captioning Cincinnati, Ohio www.maverickcaptioning.com.