Facilitating A“We Live Here” Podcast Community Meeting with St. Louis Public Radio - This Thursday, October 10, 2024

I came back to St. Louis from New York City 10 years ago this past March. The discussion about NYC’s “Stop and Frisk” police policy was just getting going when I left the big city. It turns out that my departure from The Big Apple was only 5 months before the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by on of the St. Louis suburb’s police officers…a series of events that really kicked off the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

As a result of and a response to the Ferguson Uprising, my then former radio station, St. Louis Public Radio, produced a long running, Edward R. Murrow award winning podcast called, “We Live Here”. That podcast was used to address deep-seated racial, gender, and socio-economic divides across the Gateway region.

For a time, the podcast had been on hold. But with the 10th anniversary of the Mike Brown killing in Ferguson coming up, the station decided to reboot the podcast. My co-workers Chad Davis, Danny Wicentowksi, Emily Woodbury, and Greg Munteanu (among others) made a special season of the program. It was to serve as a check-in with the community to see where things stood today with regard to policing and intercultural relations.

This special season was highlighted on the NPR homepage and it received the highest number of downloads, by far, than had ever been achieved.

Now, as a closeout to this special season, with the aim to actually reach out and engage the community and not just report on it, the WLH team has set up an in-person, “Let’s Talk About It” session for this Thursday evening, October 10, 2024 in the St. Louis Public Radio Community Room at 7:00pm. Word about this meeting has been put out on the podcast stream and over the air. And anyone that is going to be in the St. Louis area and has (hopefully) listened to the podcast can just register HERE and come to a discussion about issues that have long plagued the St. Louis area and how the region can be made a better place.

I’m going to take part in this discussion by being one of the facilitators of a small group of attendees so that we can record the thoughts and discussions of community members so that the station can be more informed about the state of where things stand in the region on these important topics.

If you or anyone you know are going to be in the area this week on Thursday evening and would like to attend the event at STLPR, please sign up here and/or pass this post along so that all that would like to attend can attend this community meeting.

And if you would like to download and listen to the “We Live Here” podcast even if you can’t attend the session, please just click on this link and then get the podcast on your favorite app.

Thank you!