Tyrone Creech: Chosen Family, Consent Culture, and the Fight for LGBTQ Youth in Wisconsin
Black Oxygen
In this episode of Black Oxygen, Angela sits down with Tyrone Creech, Executive Director of GSafe Wisconsin for a wide-ranging, deeply honest conversation about what it means to serve LGBTQ+ youth in this political moment. Tyrone shares the realities on the ground: the stripping of trans healthcare, the collapse of corporate and philanthropic support, the impossible moral calculus nonprofits face when funding comes with compromises, and the extraordinary courage of young people who are doing activism when they should just be kids. But this episode isn't just about what's...
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Pastor Marcus Allen: Recovery from Rejection
Black Oxygen
Marcus Allen of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Madison, Wisconsin sits down with Angela for a wide-ranging conversation about faith, service, combat, and community. What unfolds is a portrait of a man shaped by rejection, forged in war, and called to build something lasting. Marcus traces his journey from Clarksdale, Mississippi through Milwaukee's Great Migration chapter, three combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a divine detour that landed him in Madison in 2016. Now celebrating 10 years at Mount Zion — which itself turns 115 this year — he talks candidly about what it takes to...
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Shalicia Johnson: You’re a part of something bigger
Black Oxygen
Shalicia Johnson is a Madison-born photographer and the owner of ArrowStar Photography, where she specializes in community photography, business portraits, and family portraiture. Before picking up a professional camera, she spent 28 years in early childhood education, primarily with infants and toddlers in a continuity of care model. That work, and the deep observational practice it required, shapes everything about how she photographs people today. In this episode, Angela and Shalicia cover a wide range of topics including: Growing up in Madison and the forces that nearly redirected...
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Opal Tomashevska: Welcoming vs Belonging
Black Oxygen
Angela welcomes back the very first Black Oxygen guest, Opal Tomashevska — a Madison native, credit union leader, poet, and newly elected board president of the Lussier Community Education Center — for a rich conversation on community care as resistance. Rooted in Opal's story of growing up in Wexford Ridge and coming of age through community institutions, they explore how the cooperative model of credit unions, Black professional affinity spaces, and tight-knit circles of accountability have sustained Black women through systems that were never designed with them in mind. The conversation...
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Dr. Danielle Hairston Green: Authoring your own story
Black Oxygen
What if the story you've been afraid to tell is the exact story someone else needs to hear? New episode of Black Oxygen is live, and this conversation with Danielle Hairston-Green hit different. Danielle is a Moth Story Slam winner, host, storyteller, and director at UW-Madison Extension. She came to Wisconsin from Philadelphia by way of Texas. Eight years later, she's still here, and she has things to say. We talked about community care, shame, healing, and what it means to stop being the subject of someone else's narrative and become the author of your own. Her mentor told her: tell your...
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Governor Jim Doyle: On Talent, Tokenism, and American Democracy
Black Oxygen
In this episode of Black Oxygen, host Angela Russell is joined by former Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle for a wide-ranging conversation about diversity, race, leadership, and democracy. Governor Doyle reflects on the formative experiences that shaped his values. We dig into the mechanics of building diverse teams without tokenism, the current fragility of American democracy, Wisconsin's outsized role as a swing state, and why the arc of history — while long — still bends toward justice. This is a conversation about hope, accountability, and the kind of courage it takes to keep showing...
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Judge Everett Mitchell: Who is your neighbor?
Black Oxygen
The Hon. Rev. Everett Mitchell opens this Black Oxygen conversation with a sobering analysis of our current constitutional crisis, where unchecked executive power and Christian nationalism intersect to manipulate communities. But the heart of this conversation centers on what it means to truly care for our neighbors. Drawing from Dr. Howard Thurman's question, "What does the Bible have to say to people whose backs are against the wall?" Judge Mitchell shares powerful stories from Dane County Drug Court's 30-year history. He introduces the concept of "trauma translation"—listening through...
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Dr. Courtney Hayward: Poverty does not have to exist
Black Oxygen
This season is all about community care. And, quite frankly, how community and collective care is a part of the resistance. Community care is not a charity model—it's a model of solidarity. This season will be amplifying people and organizations that are examples of community care. I have a broad definition of community care—my personal definition includes systems work, democracy, policies, mutual aid, neighborhood centers, meal delivery, caregiving, respite care, and more. During this season I will invite guests to share their personal definition of community care, what they think...
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Black Oxygen Beyond Wisconsin feat. Ayris Scales
Black Oxygen
In this Beyond Wisconsin episode, Angela sits down with Ayris Scales, a tri-sector executive who has navigated government, nonprofit, and corporate worlds with intention and wisdom. Ayris currently serves as SVP of Social Responsibility and Global Initiatives at NAREIT, where she works to expand access to real estate investment opportunities, and runs Able Vision Enterprises, her highly selective consulting practice. This conversation tackles the urgent realities facing Black women professionals in 2025—particularly the 300,000+ who have been pushed out of the workforce in recent months....
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Ali Muldrow - All Things Beautiful - Rebroadcast
Black Oxygen
This week, I'm rebroadcasting a conversation with my dear friend Ali Muldrow. This conversation is all about beauty, joy, and friendship. As we start off 2026, the world continues to feel so heavy and overwhelming. This conversation is all about reclaiming the good in life despite the overwhelm, the noise, the comparison, and the seduction of numbness. It's an invitation to each of us to pause, slow down, to notice and to savor. Noticing beauty isn't about creating new years resolutions - it's not about the performative nature of "new year, new you." It's about noticing beauty as an act of...
info_outlineDr. Curtis shares her complicated relationship with Wisconsin—a "love and hate" dynamic shaped by leaving Milwaukee at 17, experiencing HBCUs and the East Coast, and returning multiple times before finally seeing the opportunity hidden in her home state. She now runs Taylor Nicole Wine and Cupcakes in Madison's Black Business Hub, creating the cultural space she couldn't find as a young woman in the city.
Research on Black Women's Success Dr. Curtis's doctoral research followed 14 Black women at CEO level or higher in Fortune 500 companies for two and a half years, uncovering the SCALE framework—five foundational elements these women needed to succeed and sustain success for 10+ years:
• Support Systems (mentors, networks, village)
• Capital Management (resources, allocation)
• Assets and Investing (wealth-building)
• Learning and Knowledge (continuous professional development)
• Enabling Technology (staying current with industry trends)
A striking finding: 90% of successful Black women she studied had never had another Black woman as a mentor in their workplace.
The Superpower Nobody Wants Dr. Curtis describes being a Black single mother as "a superpower nobody wants"—the exhausting reality of working harder because "no one was giving me handouts," of always being both woman and Black woman in corporate spaces, and of constantly asking "who's saving her?" when Black women are expected to save everyone else.
From Pain to Healing In a vulnerable moment, Dr. Curtis shares hitting a breaking point during COVID—scoring 50 out of 50 on a stress assessment, meaning "you can break at any moment." Her journey to therapy, initially for her daughters, became her own path to asking a fundamental question: "Do I want success from pain, or do I want success from a healing space?"
The Energy Economy Dr. Curtis speaks candidly about being "energy-led" rather than simply social—giving deeply in every interaction, which means protecting her capacity fiercely. She's retired from being "the strong friend" and encourages other Black women to ask daily: "Did you do anything selfishly for you?"
Honest Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs Rather than romanticizing entrepreneurship, Dr. Curtis asks the hard questions: What do you actually want? Can you live in uncertainty? Can you handle anxiety? Can you go into deficiency for a long time? She emphasizes that stability doesn't come from entrepreneurship and that sometimes the answer is investing in someone else's business or keeping your 9-to-5 while building—whatever serves the life you actually want, not the one you think you should want.
Defining Freedom The conversation closes with Dr. Curtis's challenge to listeners: What would you define as freedom? What kind of life do you really want? For her, it's "an unimaginable life"—and getting there requires the honesty to say no to many things to say yes to what matters most.
• LinkedIn/Instagram: @DrShakkiahCurtis
• Email: shakia@thepinkhustle.com (mailto:shakia@thepinkhustle.com)
• Visit: Taylor Nicole Wine and Cupcakes (Madison's Black Business Hub)