Recently I've made some very enjoyable media appearances.
Several months ago I was asked to be on a panel to discuss the history and long-term effects of the so-called Ninth Street Divide here in Louisville. The Ninth Street Divide is a literal dividing line between the white and black parts of town that follows the north-south route of Ninth Street from I-64 in the north to Broadway and beyond in the south. This divide was consciously created by the architects (or maybe demolition experts) of urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s.
Haven Harrington and I discuss the Ninth Street Divide for the documentary series KY Place. Photo courtesy of KY Place.
The panel discussion forms the narrative backbone for an excellent short film that is part of a series called KY Place. The other members of the panel were Dana Duncan (JCTCS instructor and former Metro Housing Authority staffer), Haven Harrington (Russell Neighborhood Association president), and Attica Scott (Kentucky state representative-elect and former Metro Councilwoman).
The film, which debuted on June 3, is available here. To learn more about urban renewal and segregation in Louisville, please check out Joshua Poe's excellent essay, "A City Divided."
I also made another appearance on the WFPL show Strange Fruit, hosted by my good friends Jaison Gardner and Professor Kaila Story. I've been on their show several times now and it's always a blast. We talked about the conviction of a Black Lives Matter activist in California for the crime of "lynching," the tragic killing of a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo, and a potentially controversial toilet paper ad that wishes single mothers a happy Father's Day.
You can listen here.
One of the things I'm most proud of is my role as vice president for the board of directors of Nerd Louisville, a local non-profit whose goal is to organize local gamers and other nerds for social events and charity work. Nerd Louisville's president, Mike Pfaff, hosts the Nerd Louisville Podcast to promote our organization as well as nerdy people and their work around town. I got to make my first guest appearance on the podcast with my long-time friend Colin Moore, the owner of the Louisville Game Shop on Baxter Avenue. We talked about how we each got into gaming, how Colin started and has successfully maintained his store over the past decade, and the overlap between games and the law.
You can listen here.
Finally, my own podcast, the Parade of Horribles, which I host with my illustrious colleague Dan Canon, is still rolling along. Our most recent episode tackles the death penalty and efforts in our state to finally abolish it. We interviewed Shekinah Lavalle of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and David Barron, the lead appellate attorney in capital cases for the Department of Public Advocacy.
The episode can be heard here.