Almost There with Dwayne Betts
by Emerson Collective
Latest episode
The Most Human Space of All
The Most Human Space of All
About this podcast
How can we shape the place we call home? And how does it shape us? This season, host and poet Dwayne Betts talks to inspiring local leaders who are working to make their homes more connected, resilient, and joyful. We’ll travel across America to meet such leaders, including a high school mariachi teacher in the Rio Grande Valley, a book seller in Salt Lake City, a farmer in upstate New York, and a reverend on the West Side of Chicago. Learn what motivates their dedication to their community, and gain insight into how you can create change in the place you call home, too.
Produced by Magnificent Noise.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 30 episodes
- The Most Human Space of All · 30 min · Season 2 Episode 8In the season two finale, Dwayne speaks with the writer Amy Low about living with the terrible diagnosis of stage four colon cancer, which she chronicled in her memoir, The Brave…
- A Place of Gratitude · 33 min · Season 1 Episode 7Karen Washington never imagined herself as a farmer. But after decades in New York City, she found her calling establishing community gardens that brought fresh food – and…
- The First Place I Felt Safe · 21 min · Season 2 Episode 6As a kid growing up below the poverty line on the west side of Salt Lake City, Calvin Crosby found immense pleasure and freedom in books. Years later, after a journey that took…
- Dance Is Story · 19 min · Season 2 Episode 5If you think dance is just movement set to music, you’re missing something big. Award-winning director and choreographer Camille A. Brown argues that dance is the act of using…
- Mariachi Became Home · 22 min · Season 2 Episode 4Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Abel Acuña has been a mariachi musician for three decades. Now, he teaches mariachi at Edinburg North High School, the very…
- A Place for Redemption · 28 min · Season 2 Episode 3Welcome to the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, where we meet Reverend Marshall Hatch Jr. He leads The MAAFA Redemption Project, a faith-based program that supports…
- My New Kentucky Home · 32 min · Season 2 Episode 2Do you have to be born in a place to feel like you are of that place? The conductor Teddy Abrams has been asking himself that question for the last decade. Originally from San…
- A Place Outside of Geography · 24 min · Season 2 Episode 1For documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, place is as much about emotion and history as it is about a geographic location. Guided by the ways he’s used place in his documentary…
- Season 2 Trailer: The Power of Place · 2 minSeason 2 of Almost There is coming soon. This season, we’re talking to inspiring local leaders with big dreams for the places they call home. We’ll travel across America to meet…
- Michael Murphy • Our buildings are making us sick. Could they heal us instead? · 35 min · Season 1 Episode 2Before Michael Murphy became an architect, his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. For the next eighteen months, as his father was treated, they worked together to restore…
- Lehua Kamalu • What you learn when you sail around the world without a compass · 33 min · Season 1 Episode 4Sailing around the world is very, very hard. But sailing around the world without the help of modern navigation technology? Shouldn’t that be impossible? Not for Lehua Kamalu…
- Chuck Yarborough • How to teach history in a divided America? Let students think for themselves · 35 min · Season 1 Episode 11Chuck Yarborough is a sixth-generation Mississippian who teaches American history at one of the best high schools in the state, The Mississippi School of Mathematics and Science…
- Joan Salwen • You can do WHAT with seaweed??? · 31 min · Season 1 Episode 20Joan Salwen has a thing for cows. After all, she grew up helping her grandfather tend to the livestock on his farm in Iowa. But as an adult, Joan was shocked to learn that cows…
- Tiana Epps-Johnson • Want to protect democracy? Hug an election official. · 30 min · Season 1 Episode 19Across the U.S., local election administrators are the unsung heroes of democracy, helping to protect our right to vote. But who is protecting them? Scarce resources and…
- Sri Shamasunder • The marvelous connections between poetry and medicine · 46 min · Season 1 Episode 18Sri Shamasunder likes to say he was a poet before he was a doctor. His college mentor, the legendary poet and activist June Jordan, passed away from cancer during his first year…
- Sara Zewde • The anti-slavery roots of America’s public parks · 35 min · Season 1 Episode 17When Hurricane Katrina barreled toward her home stretch of the Gulf Coast, Sara Zewde had not yet decided what she wanted to do professionally. But the aftermath of the storm…
- Diana Tellefson Torres • If farmworkers picked the food, shouldn’t they get a seat at the table? · 31 minTonight at dinner, you are likely to eat something that was picked by a farmworker. This is back-breaking work, involving long hours in the hot sun. And yet farmworkers, many of…
- Sheila Davis • What the AIDS epidemic taught this nurse about keeping the world healthy · 33 min · Season 1 Episode 15Sheila Davis began her career as a nurse working on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Boston. Today, lessons from that experience guide her work as the CEO of Partners…
- David Domenici • Is it possible to build a great school in a prison? · 19 min · Season 1 Episode 14Each year, more than 200,000 young people are held in hundreds of juvenile-detention centers across the U.S., many of which do not provide a quality education to the students in…
- Shari Davis • You—yes, you—can decide how the government spends money · 31 min · Season 1 Episode 13Shari Davis first began dreaming about how to empower young people as a teenager, while serving on the Mayor's Youth Council in Boston. In 2014, the Mayor of Boston asked Shari…
