In this episode, Race Forward’s Director of Root Solutions for Public Safety Alex Frank talks with John Pineda — Deputy Director and founding member of the MILPA Collective — about how communities from Minneapolis to Los Angeles are redefining public safety. Together they reflect on the lasting impact of state control, surveillance, and militarization, and the ways communities have responded through cultural organizing, resilience, and healing. As the nation confronts renewed attacks on racial equity, this conversation highlights the power of intergenerational leadership and storytelling to challenge dominant ideas of safety. In the end, guest John Pineda and host Alex Frank remind us that true safety means more than the absence of harm — it’s the presence of trust, connection, and imagination to build something better together.

As we build momentum for the 2025 Just Narratives for Multiracial Solidarity convening, this November in St. Louis, we’re honored to lift up an episode of The Solidarity is This Podcast, originally produced by Solidarity is This, an initiative of the Building Movement Project. This episode - hosted by Adaku Utah - explores the vital work of building multiracial solidarity in a moment of growing backlash against racial justice. Nikko Viquiera, Race Forward’s Deputy Senior Vice President of Programs, reflects on the challenges organizations face when their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts come under fire and how powerful storytelling can help shift public consciousness from isolation toward collective action. At its heart, this episode reminds us that solidarity is love in motion. It’s the work of naming structural racism, nurturing trust, and holding both fear and hope as we move forward together. In a time when racial equity itself is being challenged, Race Forward and the Building Movement Project show that transformation begins when we lead with community, imagination, and the belief that our liberation is deeply intertwined.

On this episode of Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast, Obery Hendricks, Ph.D., one of the most influential Black biblical scholars writing today, and Race Forward’s Chief of Staff Charlene Sinclair, Ph.D., who herself fashions strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality for racial and economic justice, discuss the immediacy of pushing back against the spread of Christian Nationalism and the urgency of creating narratives based on the gospel’s “true teachings” to reflect the ongoing political moment and fight for progressive policies that stay true to the bible’s "liberationist ideals". Throughout the conversation Obery and Charlene share insights on the importance (and opportunity) for the progressive left to engage in spirituality and religion and why faith in movement spaces is not always well received; the weaponization of Christianity and the gospel by the right to justify implementing extremist policies; how Afro-Christianity has historically reflected teachings of freedom and liberation; and how religious leaders are being looked to to provide guidance as capitalism and white supremacy have led to the rise of authoritarianism and the destabilization of democracy around the world. If you enjoyed today’s episode, you can now support Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast and Race Forward’s audio work by texting “RFPod” to 44-321 to make a tax-deductible contribution.