In episode three of Making of an Activist we discover that after stints in Baltimore and Harlem Children’s Zone, DeRay Mckesson heads to Minneapolis to lead the human capital department for Minneapolis Public Schools. In the safety and security of a career-defining role, DeRay watches the immediate aftermath of Mike Brown’s brutal murder at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson and simply cannot sit still. There is no going back for DeRay, we discover what sparked his drive down to Ferguson, and how life changed forever. Expert and historical context provided by Harvard Professor Brandon Terry, and others. We learn more about what came before the death of Mike Brown and the systemic issues of policing in the US.

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Aldine Independent School District in Texas began the journey of drastically changing how reading is taught in 2020 – not knowing that a global pandemic was on the horizon. When COVID hit, the district didn’t abandon the plan; they persevered. In part three of our series on literacy, host Gloria Riviera talks with Aldine Superintendent LaTonya Goffney and Executive Director of Literacy and Social Studies Jacqueline Beas about what it was like to make the seismic shift.

This episode is created in partnership with the Schusterman Family Philanthropies. Thank you to Aldine Independent School District for making this conversation possible.

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What does the upcoming Trump presidency mean for the care economy and the over 105 million family caregivers in our country? In this post-election bonus episode, caregiving expert and policy advocate Ai-jen Poo returns to tell us what challenges lay ahead for families and care workers, and how we can keep fighting for a better system that allows us to truly show up for care.

This season of Uncared For is presented by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit foundation making grants to promote an equitable, high-performing health care system.

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