Rosa Rebellion Launches gen/activist Podcast

Rosa Rebellion founders, Virginia Cumberbatch and Meagan Harding, recently launched their new podcast, gen/activist. Furthering the pair’s vision to provide “a platform for creative activism by and for women of color,” the podcast aims to “cultivate much needed, multi-generational dialogue” in the ongoing work of racial justice. Cumberbatch and Harding serve as co-hosts of each episode along with Dr. Sylvia Rousseau (aka: “G-mom”), interviewing key activists who are fighting for equity across the country.

Featured on the cover of our February wellness issue, the Rosa Rebellion founders penned an essay calling all of Austin into the work of racial justice through intentional and sacrificial labor. The new podcast provides one resource to continue heeding that call, listening in to digital living room conversations on historic and contemporary activism with inspiring stories from women of color. 

“We are creating a space to cultivate much needed, multi-generational dialogue,” the founders shared in a recent newsletter. “As key disruptors in our recent history are living their third act, it is important that they tell their own stories and that we learn from their wisdom, lessons and tactics. The fight for equity is endless, always requiring us to innovate and preserve simultaneously. We advance by building on the work of those who have gone before us and many of them are still among us to put us on game by inspiring, teaching and co-laboring with us.”

Released on March 30th, the first episode highlights the work of author Rachel Ricketts in a conversation on spiritual activism and racial justice using her new book, Do Better, as a guide for fighting anti-Blackness.

Joining the second episode are two local community activists and voting rights advocates, Alice Yi and Ashley Cheng, who discuss electoral politics, civic engagement and contemporary violence against Asians and Asian-Americans in this country.

Cheng, who was one of our People of the Year in December 2020, is also helping organize this weekend’s rally to #stopasianhate at Huston-Tillotson University, which takes place at 4pm on Saturday, April 17th. Cumberbatch will also join as a guest speaker, and those who cannot attend but would like to donate can do so here. Otherwise, listeners can continue to learn, support and engage in the ongoing and intersectional work of racial justice by looking out for future episodes of the gen/activist podcast and following Rosa Rebellion on Instagram.