Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, America's First Black Female Public Health Pioneer
Release Date: 05/14/2025
Soul Force: The Legacy of Rev. James Lawson Jr.
Making Contact
A year ago, the world said goodbye to Reverend James Lawson Jr. On today's show, we look back at the work and legacy this leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement and advocate of nonviolence, with the help of the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. Reverend James Lawson Jr., nonviolence advocate and civil rights leader Making Contact Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/) Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain Music...
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East Orosi’s Long Struggle for Water, Part 2: The Role of Community Utility Districts (Encore) Description
Making Contact
Last week, we visited a community in California's Central Valley called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East Orosi to get clean drinking water and fix its sewage problems? To answer that question, we take a look at the community utility districts that run sewage and water in unincorporated towns all across California. We'll discuss their problems as well as ways to save them. This show first aired in August 2024. Episode Credits Episode...
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East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water (Encore)
Making Contact
In 2012, the state of California declared water a human right. Yet nearly 400 water systems don't meet the state's drinking water standards. In the Central Valley, the community of East Orosi hasn’t had safe tap water in over 20 years. The water is full of harmful nitrates and other runoff from industrial agriculture. We visit East Orosi and talk to Berta Diaz Ochoa and others about what it’s like living without access to clean drinking water and how the community has taken action to find a solution. This episode originally aired in July 2023. Making Contact Credits Episode host and...
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Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, America's First Black Female Public Health Pioneer
Making Contact
Dr. Rebecca Crumpler was the first Black woman to become a physician in the United States. Working in the aftermath of the Civil War, she made immense contributions to public health, despite the racism and sexism she faced. We'll trace the course of her remarkable life and work with in a story brought to us by the podcast Lost Women of Science, hosted by Katie Hafner and producer Dominique Janee. Featuring: Dr. Melody McCloud, Physician and author of Black Women’s Wellness Dr. Joan Reede, Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School Jim Downs, Historian...
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Seeing Signs from Queens Memory Podcast (Encore)
Making Contact
For AAPI Heritage Month, we bring you an encore of our 2023 episode "Seeing Signs." With help from the Queens Memory Podcast, we'll learn about “Little Manila,” a Filipino neighborhood dating back to the 1970s that still struggles to find its political footing. We also hear from Filipino care workers about their experiences battling COVID 19. This episode first aired on Making Contact in May 2023. Featuring: Potri Ranka Manis: Nurse, Activist and Artist Joey Golja: Community Member Mary Jane de Leon: Community Member John Bahia: Community Member Steven Raga: Assemblymember for District...
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The Healing Project: An Abolitionist Story (Encore)
Making Contact
Composer, pianist, and vocalist Samora Pinderhughes tells us about The Healing Project. The Healing Project, a fundamentally abolitionist project, explores the structures of systemic racism and the prison industrial complex. The Healing Project takes action towards abolition with forms such as musical songs, films, an exhibition, community gatherings, live performances, and a digital library of audio interviews. At the center of the project are the intergenerational voices of people across the country, including folks incarcerated in prisons and detention centers. Their stories, experiences,...
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Radical Therapy from Re:Work
Making Contact
In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we bring you a story at the intersection of therapy, healing and social justice. We'll hear about one therapist’s work to bring the lens of radical therapy and community care into her practice. This piece was produced by the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. Featuring: Claudia Morales, therapist at Social Justice Healing Making Contact Team Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Engineer: [Jeff Emtman](http://www.jeffemtman.com/) ...
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The Promise and Peril of Geoengineering (Encore)
Making Contact
For Earth Day, we bring back a special environmental episode from our archives! As we head into an ever warming world, some experts and politicians are embracing a possible solution to climate change called geoengineering. Theoretically geoengineering could slow down climate change, stop it, and maybe even remove carbon from the air. It sounds like the perfect answer for a global political system that just can’t stop burning fossil fuels even if it kills us all. But it might not be the easy fix we’re hoping for. We talk to scientists and activists about what geoengineering is and why...
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The Calling
Making Contact
For Black Maternal Health Week, we celebrate the important work that Black midwives do in their communities. In this week's show, we'll hear a conversation about how one woman followed her calling to midwifery in a story brought to us by the podcast Re:Work from the UCLA Labor Center. Featuring Kimberly Durdin, licensed midwife and co-founder of Kindred Space LA and the Birthing People Foundation Making Contact Team Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Engineer: Digital Media Marketing:...
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The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition (Encore)
Making Contact
What is caste? According to author Thenmozhi Soundararajan, “caste is suffering. That one’s worth and fate are determined at the moment of birth. Forced to exist in a caste apartheid of segregated ghettos." On this week's episode, we talk to Thenmozhi Soundararajan the author of The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition. Examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective , Thenmozhi lays bare the grief, trauma, rage, and stolen futures enacted by Brahminical social structures on the caste-oppressed. This is an encore...
info_outlineDr. Rebecca Crumpler was the first Black woman to become a physician in the United States. Working in the aftermath of the Civil War, she made immense contributions to public health, despite the racism and sexism she faced. We'll trace the course of her remarkable life and work with in a story brought to us by the podcast Lost Women of Science, hosted by Katie Hafner and producer Dominique Janee.
Featuring:
Dr. Melody McCloud, Physician and author of Black Women’s Wellness Dr. Joan Reede, Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership at Harvard Medical School Jim Downs, Historian and author of Sick from Freedom * Victoria Gall, with Hyde Park Historical Society and Friends of the Hyde Park Branch Library
Making Contact Credits
- Episode host and producer: Lucy Kang
- Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum, and Lucy Kang
- Executive Director: Jina Chung
- Engineer: Jeff Emtman
- Digital Media Marketing: Lissa Deonarain
Music Credit: "The Road From Home" by Sergii Pavkin from Pixabay
Lost Women of Science: "Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, America's First Black Female Public Health Pioneer" Credits
- Producer and host: Dominique Janee
- Host: Katie Hafner
- Managing senior producer: Barbara Howard
- Audio engineer and sound designer: Samia Bouzid
Published in partnership with Scientific American
Learn More:
Making Contact homepage | Listen to the full episode from Lost Women of Science