Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land

Between Borders and Belonging with Akwaeke Emezi and Susuyu Lassa

Many of us come to land through rupture—through migration, through displacement, through histories that have severed, but not erased, our connection.

So what does it mean to return to right relationship with land… when our presence is shaped by borders, by policy, by systems that were never meant to hold us?

Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) is a Nigerian writer...

From Scarcity to Sovereignty: Fear, the Body, and Our Relationship to Land

Our food systems, land relationships, and community structures mirror our internal landscapes. When we are organized around fear and unprocessed trauma, we build systems of hoarding, extraction, and control. When we metabolize fear, we can build systems rooted in reciprocity and care.

Prentis Hemphill is the bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal, ...

In this podcast, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, we explore what it means to be sovereign. In this conversation, we look at ecocide in Palestine and across the African continent, and we explore seed saving as a path forward — a sacred act of preserving history and culture in the face of ongoing dispossession.  We know that colonization and occupation are not only political but ecological systems — from d...

In this episode, we reflect on the importance of creating liberatory art and media rooted in oral histories. We explore how to honor our experiences through storytelling that is honest, ethical, and complete in the pursuit of collective liberation.

LeeAnn C. Morrissette is a Black southern, multidisciplinary storyteller and cultural worker based on unceded Cusabo land (Charleston, SC). She has created for Oxford American, the ...

In this episode, we root into questions of land, healing, and accountability. We explore how misogynoir shows up in our movement spaces, and how Black men are reimagining their relationships to land, to self, and to each other. Through reflection, care, and vision, we ask: what does it mean to build liberated futures without carrying harm into the soil?

Bertram Williams Jr is an actor, voice artist and community advocate with urban...

This episode, DEVOTED CREATORSHIP, invites us into a rich exploration of the universal languages that connect us all. We center the essential roles of storytellers, creators, and cultural weavers—those who thread vision into form—as we journey toward land sovereignty and collective liberation. Together, we’ll muse on art as sacred strategy: a vital force that not only stirs the soul, but propels our movements forw...

In this episode, NEIGHBORHOOD HEALER, we explore cosmic aligned herbalism. We’re diving deeply into the ways that cosmic patterns inform our relationship to medicine making, bridging heaven and earth -- as well as the ways that our medicine making practices can be rooted in liberation for our communities and sustainability for the land. 

Trained in Eastern and Western Herbal Medicine, Master Herbalist, Karen M. Rose crea...

This episode, WILD CURRENTS, explores Leah and Patrisse’s personal journeys to living in closer relationship with the Earth, their spiritual practices and how that supports their connection with the land.

Patrisse Cullors holds a multitude of well tended gifts as; an abolitionist, artist, and writer who co-founded the Black Lives Matter movement. Inspired by the be...

In this episode, we discuss role of imagination in the movement toward land sovereignty and liberation with adrienne maree brown and Ayo Ngozi.

adrienne maree brown (she/they) is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism,...

In this episode, we explore stewarding land with indigenous wisdom in the modern day, merging ancient ancestral practices with emerging technologies with Joshua Kwaku Asiedu and Bailey Hutchison.

Born and raised in Milan, Italy, Joshua Kwaku Asiedu is the son of an Akwapim-Ghanaian father and a Neapolitan-Italian mother. He never felt at ease in the materialistic, consumerist, and Eurocentri...

In this episode, we explore the longing, grief, and depth of connection felt between the global majority and the ancestral lands we’ve been separated from, and the personal ways we’ve reclaimed, preserved, and deepened our connection to our homelands with Junauda Petrus and Ysanet Batista.

Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land is a series, rich in storyt...