Audio Nuggets: Mining For Gold – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome back to Audio Nuggets. To proclaim and honor June as Stolen Children’s Month, we gather to tell the truth about what has survived. This season, we are inside True Narratives — a call to listen differently, to witness more deeply, and to make room for the messiness that is necessary for solidarity and liberation.

We are joined by Ashley Albert, Tanesha Grant, and Courtney Dowe for this episode; True Narratives: The Kind of Love Termination Can’t Destroy!

In this episode, we enter a sacred conversation about the collective cost of termination of parental rights — the civil death penalty — and what happens when the state uses violence and power to rupture families and then asks people to heal from what was never attempted to be repaired. This conversation is about collective mourning, grief, and love. The kind of mourning that lives in the body. The kind that shakes without warning. The kind that moves through generations. The kind that sits underneath survival, underneath art, underneath testimony, underneath the love that never disappeared.

We want to honor and thank everyone who helped shape this episode through their artistry, truth-telling, and creative offerings. Deep gratitude to Elijah Lee and Kazeem Coleman on drums, April Lee for her spoken word, Courtney Dowe for singing, Tanesha Grant for reading, Ashley Albert for storytelling, and Sarah Katz for helping set the context that grounds this conversation collective memory.

The invitation is to build a bigger US. To learn more about True Narratives, visit us at Mining For Gold – True Narratives

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome back to Audio Nuggets. As we approach Mother's Day 2026, we are grateful to be joined by Toia Potts for this episode, True Narratives- I Will Always Be Your Mother.

Toia Potts is a fierce activist and organizer in North Carolina. After being falsely accused of child abuse, she spent more than eight months in Durham County jail on an unattainable bond. She was later fully exonerated, with all charges dismissed. Today, she continues her healing and leadership as Co-founder of Carolina Parent Defenders, Founder of Thrive Tribe NC, and Family Advocate/Organizer with EmancipateNC, fighting alongside Black mothers experiencing forced family separation.

This episode brings forward a love story, a truth-telling, and a living record of motherhood that endures across every condition. Anchored by the love for her children, this conversation holds the depth of a mother’s love, the sacredness of family bonds, and the power of speaking truth in one’s own voice. Toia shares a lineage of connection, remembrance, and refusal to let her children’s story be disconnected from their people, their history, and their origin. At the heart of this episode is a declaration: I will always be your mother. That truth carries memory, belonging, devotion, and the enduring bond between parent and child. It offers listeners a powerful witness to love that lives in the body, in the spirit, and across time. 

For more information on True Narratives, visit us at TRUE NARRATIVES - MINING FOR GOLD

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome to the cypher. Audio Nuggets is where you will find a symbiotic force; both the heaviness of the air to breathe, and the light of freedom of liberation. Where human consciousness is alive. Each voice has a moment to spotlight their IT; their shine; their journey; their truth; their gold. 

Tanesha Grant, Executive Director of Parents Supporting Parents in New York, joins Mining For Gold to co-host this revelatory episode- Black Liberation Community Vigil: What is Freedom and Healing for Stolen Children?

The Black Liberation Community are beloved comrades who have come together in a brave, sacred space over the past two years — to laugh, cry, talk shit, hold each other through the pain of losing loved one, to imagine and practice new worlds while abolishing our internalized beliefs, and loving on each other in ALL Black. This practice supports our collective healing. The Black Liberation Community is live in the cypher to publicize a vigil as a part of our duty and commitment to Stolen Children’s Month. We are joined by Edwin from Iowa, Samara from Arizona, Latoya from Arkansas and Courtney from Washington DC. 

In the background, America celebrates freedom and independence while carcerality reigns, and imperialism continues to inflict horrific family separation.  As you listen, you will feel the beautiful rhythm and the vibrations of the Black Liberation Community coming together to reclaim our liberated rights. To heal…to love…to commune...to challenge…and to grow.

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome to the cypher! Audio Nuggets is where you will find a symbiotic force; both the heaviness of the air to breathe, and the light of freedom of liberation. Where human consciousness is alive. Each voice has a moment to spotlight their IT; their shine; their journey; their truth; their gold. We are excited to be joined by Ashley Albert for this episode, Stolen Children’s Month- The Visionary.

Ashley Albert is a visionary mother, abolitionist, and founder of Stolen Children’s Month. Through Stolen Children’s Month, Ashley seeks to reclaim what has been stolen from us: our children, our joy, our lineage, and our rights to raise our babies in peace. Born into loss and raised through systems designed to break her, Ashley’s story is one of survival, power, and reclamation.

This episode deeply explores Stolen Children’s Month; a call for the abolition of all systems that steal children and separate families, including the family policing, adoption, and foster industries; the ICE detention and deportation machine; and the prison-industrial complex. Throughout June, impacted leaders across the country are organizing vigils, love letter gatherings, storytelling projects, and healing circles to honor stolen children and build towards healing justice.

Ashley embodies liberation and freedom. She is encouraging all of us to become the deep medicine of decolonization. Stolen Children’s Month is a rediscovery, a mourning, a dreaming, a commitment and an action. We can find our way to cultivate the change within ourselves and within our collective.  You can learn more about Stolen Children’s Month and all the ways to be involved and practice solidarity at June 2025: Stolen Children's Month. 

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome to the cypher! Audio Nuggets is where you will find a symbiotic force; both the heaviness of the air to breathe, and the light of freedom of liberation. Where human consciousness is alive. Each voice has a moment to spotlight their IT; their shine; their journey; their truth; their gold. And through the tenderness of love, we will aggressively claim our voice and own our right to humanity. We are excited to be joined by Toshira Maldonado for this episode, Birthing Black- The Shared Fight.

Toshira Maldonado is fueled by passion for Black maternal health and racial justice. She is an international birthworker, community organizer, and educator. Toshira co-founded a maternal wellness group that grew out of her church group in 2004. Today it is known as Most Beautiful W.O.M.B. Inc., (Women Overcoming Major Barriers), flourishing as a grassroots community led organization. Her professional experience with family policing in Philadelphia for over seven years added purpose to what she describes as her life mission to support women. Along with 26 years as a community birth worker, she holds four generations of holistic healing and birth keeping close to her heart. 

This episode explores Toshira's journey as a birthworker for freedom and liberation. Toshira's liberation is fortified by being a descendent of ancestors who birthed this nation, African spirituality, the power of communal midwifery, and healing. Toshira lives in her purpose of seeing the full humanity of Black women, and experiencing the love of people who came from generations of systemic abuse, inhumane treatment, and the legacy of enslavement.  Toshira reminds us..free people, free people...that want to see people free!

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome to the cypher! Audio Nuggets is where you will find a symbiotic force; both the heaviness of the air to breathe, and the light of freedom of liberation. Where human consciousness is alive. Each voice has a moment to spotlight their IT; their shine; their journey; their truth; their gold. And through the tenderness of love, we will aggressively claim our voice and own our right to humanity. We are blessed and honored to be joined by Dr. Resmaa Menakem for this episode, Reclaiming Humanity Tenderness.

Embodied provocateur, multiple-levels thinker, and structural paradigm shifter Resmaa Menakem, is an author, agent of change, therapist, and licensed clinical worker specializing in racialized trauma, communal healing, and cultural first aid based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As the originator and leading proponent of Somatic Abolitionism, an embodied anti racist practice for living and culture building, Resmaa is the founder of Justice Leadership Solutions and the Cultural Somatics Institute and is an educator and coach. Working at the intersections of anti-racism, communal healing, and embodied purpose, Resmaa Menakem is the challenging yet compassionate coach we all need in this time of racial reckoning and near-global dysregulation.

We can't explain what you're about to listen to. Jump in with tenderness and love for the people. It is our role to tend to things. This is a time to reclaim the things we have been thinking are unclaimable. Because there's a little bit more room now. The cultivation of glue. The glue of peoplehood. 

To learn more about Resmaa and the Black Octopus Society, visit resmaa and Black Octopus Society.

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome to the cypher! Audio Nuggets is blessed for the gift to be joined by BeKura Shabazz for this episode- Stay Ready For Freedom.

BeKura Shabazz, a Virginia native, and a mother of four who through her challenges of taking on the system while trying to provide for her children as a single mother, learned the law to protect herself and many others navigating systems of oppression. She is the founder and President of the Injustice Reform Network.

This episode illuminates BeKura’s embodied liberation and freedom. The episode uncovers the interconnectedness of carceral systems and state violence, and how that has fueled BeKura’s purpose in the revolution. Political education, legal education, community education, and learning the language of the oppressor are tactics for BeKura in organizing and movement building, as she activates and unifies people in building a new world and building nets that work. BeKura’s network is her net worth.

The conversation deepens to explore the Injustice Reform Network’s pillars of criminal, family policing, environment, and housing injustice. Oppressive systems don’t narrow their scope; therefore, the vision and mission of the Injustice Reform Network can’t and won’t be narrow and siloed. Many individuals are impacted by a multitude of systems. BeKura reminds us of the need to expand our thinking and our learning.

Naming injustice for the safety and protection of her people is a requirement for the way that BeKura practices justice. The level of care that comes from protecting her village is the care that cares for her.  BeKura leaves us with the most beautiful reminder---”We got work to do. If you are already ready, you won’t have to get ready!”

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

We are BACK the cypher! Audio Nuggets is grateful and humbled to be joined by Rev. angel Kyodo williams for this Black History ’25 anchor episode- Healing Race.

Rev. angel Kyodo williams is a visionary author, strategist, founder of Transformative Change, and architect of the audacious Healing Race Portal. Called “one of our wisest voices on social evolution” by On Being’s Krista Tippett, Rev. angel is the second Black woman to hold the most senior title in Zen Buddhism. Her 30 years of multi-dimensional work and practice have expanded the possibilities of personal and collective liberation. 

Ever since her critically acclaimed first book, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace was hailed as “an act of love” by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker, Rev. angel has been bridging the worlds of transformation and justice. Her second book, Radical Dharma: Talking, Race, Love & Liberation, ignited communities, catalyzing practices and technology that became the laboratory for healing race.

This episode is revelatory. This episode is radical. This episode is an experience you do not want to miss. The conversation explores Rev. angel’s lifelong commitment to liberation and freedom, and deeply explores the Healing Race Portal. Rev. angel constructed the Healing Race Portal to facilitate the broadest possible passageway for people to return to our core nature as humans who want to belong. It is a global intervention to disrupt the harmful effects of racialization. Rigorous in discipline and rooted in love, Rev. angel applies wisdom teachings and embodied practice to intractable social issues. She was made for these times, and we are grateful to share the cypher with her!

Interested in having a LIVE in-person experience of Healing Race Portal with Rev. angel??? You have a RARE opportunity. From MARCH 11th to the 14th, Rev. angel will be joined by special guest Dr. Resmaa Menakem, best-selling author, healer and trauma specialist, in Montgomery, Alabama. Together, they will prime and guide participants through the Legacy Museum, which powerfully documents our country’s history of racial trauma. This is a 3-day journey, where you’ll engage in the practices and methodologies architected by Rev. angel to heal the impacts of racialization on our bodies--meaning, your personal body, the collective body, and our relationship to the body of Earth. This HRP Live experience is not likely to happen again in this intimate, small-group format—so, if you feel called to it, go right now to healingraceportal.com to see if there are any spaces left and register for this profoundly transformative, in-person experience with Rev. angel and Dr. Resmaa Menakem.

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Audio Nuggets is back in the cypher! We have pulled from the greatness of hip hop culture in this all-Black container, where we are expressive and a bit impatient as we struggle for even a taste of justice. We are grateful to be joined by our comrade and friend, Brittany Gail Thomas for this episode, Blackness 365.

Brittany Gail Thomas (affectionately known by all as “BGT”) is a visionary leader, passionate advocate, nuanced thought-leader, and unapologetic champion for the most marginalized communities. She is a wife, mom, friend, mentor, non-profit Founder & CEO, DEIJ Coordinator, and Assistant Federal Public Defender who combines her passion for justice with her litigation, training, and administrative skills to manage it all. 

We are in a time of reckoning. There is no statute of limitation in the annihilation of Black bodies. BGT has an embodied presence and is grounded in individual responsibility. This episode is about Blackness, Black history, and the love of Black people. Every space that BGT occupies is a testament to her ancestors' struggles which flow through her bones and veins. This connection fuels her passion for advocating for Black people and her clients in the struggle toward freedom and liberation.  The message is clear: Black History is not a month. We are proud to honor and celebrate Blackness 365!

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org. 

Welcome to the cypher! Audio Nuggets is back, as fierce as ever, for 2025. We are turning the page. Another beginning, a new season, and for a lot of us; so much work to be done. Get ready to experience the rhythm of the cypher with our friend and guest, MiDian Shofner for Dreaming In Blackness. 

MiDian Shofner embodies the essence of Denver, Colorado. Influenced by the indomitable spirit and wisdom of her forebears, MiDian has forged her path of leadership steeped in the traditions of advocacy, faith, and activism. As the CEO of the Epitome of Black Excellence & Partnership and the Owner/Founder of 8PM Consulting for Humanity, MiDian brings an unwavering commitment to racial justice.

This is a conversation grounded in liberation of the mind, body, soul, and spirit. The episode explores Black culture as being coveted, and how being accountable to our own humanity will allow us to live in all our bigness and all of our radiant shine.  With a firm reminder of the place that Black bodies sit today is because of the dreaming that the ancestors had, to experience the liberated minds of today. Dreaming in Blackness means that we begin to unlearn the conditioning of the oppressor and move toward embracing and being captivated by the conditioning that our ancestors gave us; the vision of freedom.

MiDian gifts the cypher with a demonstration of intentional love and liberation. It is magnified. It is palpable.  In turning the page into 2025, let us all remember the joy in love, and remember what we are saying YES to! What we pay attention to will grow. 

This show is part of the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Learn more at SafeCampAudio.org.