Baldwin & Co. Ideas Explored

Dr. Uché Blackstock and journalist Jarvis DeBerry engaged in a piercing, personal, and deeply emotional conversation about race, medicine, education, and the invisible weight of Black excellence. Centered around Blackstock’s acclaimed book Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, the discussion revealed how systemic bias infiltrates everything—from classroom desks to hospital beds. They spoke candidly about the burden of overperformance, the quiet trauma of being “the only one,” and the emotional toll of raising Black children in a world that often denies their worth. With reflections on family, identity, and institutional mistrust, this dialogue offered more than critique—it was a call for love, protection, and truth-telling in spaces that too often demand silence.Order Dr. Uche´ Blackstock Books Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9780593491294Order Jarvis DeBerry Book Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9781608011858Order Baldwin & Co. Merch Here: https://shop.baldwinandcobooks.comLearn more about Baldwin & Co. Foundation: https://bcofoundation.orgThis episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#BlackExcellence #DrUcheBlackstock #BlackHealthMatters #Burnout #TwiceAsHard #HealthEquity #MentalHealthAwareness #BlackWellness #SystemicRacism #WorkCulture #RestIsResistance #MedicalApartheid #LegacyBuilding #SelfCare #EquityInAction #GenerationalHealth #BlackJoy #OvercomingBurnout #RacialDisparities #HealthcareHeroes #SocialJustice #WellnessJourney #WorkLifeBalance #BlackCommunity #AuthenticSelf

Shaka Senghor is a leading voice on criminal justice reform, a tech investor, and the author of Writing My Wrongs and Letters to the Sons of Society.Is society addicted to rage and victimhood? In this powerful conversation, New York Times bestselling author Shaka Senghor (Writing My Wrongs) joins Jerid Woods to dismantle the modern narratives around resilience, race, and personal agency.They dive deep into the uncomfortable truths about monetizing pain, the "addiction" to being offended, and why true freedom comes from refusing to give up your power to external circumstances. Shaka opens up about his journey from prison to best-selling author, revealing how he cultivated a mindset of success by focusing on "wins" rather than losses.If you are looking to break free from the "autopilot" of life and manifest your own vision of freedom, this conversation is a must-watch.#shakasenghor #howtrobefree #shaka #senghor #jeridwoods #ablackmanreading This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.

Kellie Carter Jackson is a historian, author, and professor whose work explores Black resistance, abolition, and the intellectual history of Black political thought in America.Shennette Garrett-Scott is a historian and author specializing in Black women’s economic history, examining how Black women used business, finance, and mutual aid to build power and autonomy in the United States.This conversation is an exploration of how Black women use literature, history, and storytelling as tools of survival, resistance, and meaning-making. Moving fluidly between personal memory and scholarly insight, Kellie Carter Jackson & Shennette Garrett-Scott argue that literature—especially Black women’s literature—does more than represent the past; it cultivates empathy, restores interior lives erased by violent archives, and teaches readers how to live.The discussion reframes historical method itself. Rather than striving for a detached objectivity, Kellie Carter Jackson & Shennette Garrett-Scott insist that bringing one’s whole self—emotion, ancestry, memory—into the archive produces better questions and truer histories. Empathy is not a weakness of scholarship but one of its most powerful instruments, especially when the historical record is fragmentary, brutal, or designed to dehumanize.At the center of the conversation is the concept of “refusal”: refusal to accept unjust terms, refusal to surrender dignity, refusal to allow trauma to define the totality of a life. Through intergenerational stories—of mothers, grandmothers, and children—Kellie Carter Jackson & Shennette Garrett-Scott show how refusal is passed down as a form of spiritual DNA. Injury may leave a mark, but it does not dictate the shape of a life.Crucially, the conversation resists the trap of defining Black history solely through suffering. Joy emerges as a political and communal practice, not escapism but fortification. Laughter, art, music, books, and gathering are framed as collective defenses against despair and erasure.The dialogue also expands history beyond classrooms and books, emphasizing bookstores, podcasts, public talks, and community spaces as essential sites of intellectual life. History, they argue, matters most when people recognize themselves inside it—and when it helps them imagine how to act, protect, refuse, and build in the present.Ultimately, this is a conversation about how knowledge becomes lived wisdom—how stories shape not only what we know, but how we love, resist, raise children, and remain human in difficult times.This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#kelliecarterjackson #ShennetteGarrett-Scott #werefuse #resistance 

We are living through what Dr. Imani Perry calls a "season of destruction," a deliberate era where the legacy of the freedom movement is being erased. In this riveting dialogue, Glaude and Dr. Imani Perry do not just lament the state of the nation; they dissect the very soul of American democracy.The conversation centers on a powerful dialectic: "freedom snatching" versus "freedom seeking". Dr. Imani Perry argues that we must look beyond the mid-20th-century Civil Rights movement—which we often view as the norm—and instead study the "plague years" following Reconstruction to understand our current crisis. It is in those moments of profound betrayal, such as the era of the Fugitive Slave Law, where we find the blueprint for how to build in the face of catastrophe.Perhaps the most provocative thread is their critique of modern success. Imani Perry poses a haunting question: What is freedom? Is it merely the ability to live like middle-class white people?. The scholars warn against a "Black neoliberalism" that equates freedom with material access while ignoring the erosion of the very institutions—the "barrier islands"—that once protected Black communities from the storm.This is not a conversation about despair; it is a call to reconstruction. As Eddie Glaude Jr. notes, the work of building isn't just about political victories; it is a "fortification," a space for self-creation and love in a society where white supremacy remains the baseline condition.This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.Order Eddie Glaude Jr Books Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9780674737600Order Imani Perry Books Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9780062977373Order Baldwin & Co. Merch Here: https://shop.baldwinandcobooks.comLearn more about Baldwin & Co. Foundation: https://bcofoundation.org#EddieGlaude #ImaniPerry #SocialJustice #AmericanHistory #Politics #BlackFreedom #Democracy #Reconstruction

In a candid, laughter-laced conversation, Tarriona "Tank" Ball pulls back the curtain on vulnerability as both artistic method and emotional necessity. Discussing her poetry collection The Thing About Falling, Ball distinguishes this work from her earlier book Vulnerable by one crucial shift: this time, the poems were not written for anyone else—not an ex, not an audience—but for herself. What emerges is an unguarded meditation on love after heartbreak, the danger of rushing healing, and the quiet education that happens in the “in-between” relationships. Falling, she explains, is never intentional, but survival depends on whether someone—or something—can catch you when it happens. Moving fluidly between humor, romance, self-reckoning, and performance, the conversation affirms writing as one of the most exposed art forms there is: just words, memory, and nerve. In Ball’s telling, poetry does not resolve longing or confusion—it names them, dignifies them, and reminds the listener they are not alone in feeling exactly this way. Order Tarriona "Tank" Ball Books Here: https://bookshop.org/a/20190/9798881600211Order Baldwin & Co. Merch Here: https://shop.baldwinandcobooks.comLearn more about Baldwin & Co. Foundation: https://bcofoundation.orgThis episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#TankAndTheBangas #TankBall #SpokenWordPoetry #PoetryReading #PoetryTalk #Vulnerability #TheThingAboutFalling #BlackWomenPoets #LoveAndHealing #HeartbreakToHealing #WritingAsTherapy #ArtAndEmotion #PoetryCommunity #NewOrleansArtists #CreativeProcess #EmotionalHonesty #WomenInArt #PoetryIsPower

Bernice L. McFadden is an award-winning American novelist and memoirist whose work explores Black womanhood, ancestry, trauma, and survival through lyrical, historically grounded storytelling.In a conversation that moves with the force of lived history, Bernice L. McFadden refuses the comfort of distance. Interviewed by Dr. Ebony Perro, Professor of Practice at Tulane University. Bernice's memoir, Firstborn Girls, emerges not as a private act of recollection but as a public reckoning—one that insists family stories and American history are inseparable. Written during the pandemic and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests, McFadden frames her life as an “auto-ethnography,” tracing cycles of violence, survival, rage, and resilience across generations of Black women. History, she reminds us, does not simply repeat; it rhymes. And in those rhymes—lynchings, domestic terror, state violence—she recognizes patterns that echo from her ancestors’ lives into the present moment.Selected Popular Books by Bernice L. McFaddenFirstborn Girls: A MemoirSugarGloriousGathering of Waters (New York Times Editors’ Choice)The Warmest DecemberPraise Song for the ButterfliesNowhere Is a PlaceWhat gives the conversation its gravity is McFadden’s refusal to sentimentalize. Motherhood is described as loving but brutal work. Rage is not pathology but fuel—necessary, clarifying, and dangerous only when it calcifies into bitterness. Her stories of formidable women, particularly Aunt Anna, unfold with dark humor and terrifying resolve, revealing how protection sometimes required ferocity. Writing becomes both purge and preservation: a way to honor the dead, confront the living, and free oneself from silence. By naming family members plainly, McFadden creates distance enough to tell the truth, even when that truth fractures family myths.This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#BerniceMcFadden #FirstbornGirls #BlackWomenWriters #LiteraryConversation #Memoir #BlackLiterature #AncestralMemory #GenerationalTrauma #BlackWomanhood #AmericanHistory #RageAndResilience #StorytellingAsResistance #AutoEthnography #LiteraryGenealogy #WritingTheTruth #BlackFeministThought #BooksThatMatter #AuthorsInConversation #LiteraryCulture #HistoryThatRhymes

What happens when four of the most influential forces in entrepreneurship, media, and culture sit down for a raw, unfiltered conversation at one of the country’s most disruptive Black-owned bookstore? You get a conversation that flips the script on success, reveals the ugly truths behind wealth-building, and shows you how to break generational curses in real-time. In this explosive dialogue moderated by David Shands at Baldwin & Co., Earn Your Leisure co-founders Troy Millings and Rashad Bilal sit alongside hospitality mogul Larry Morrow to break down how they went from kitchen tables and iPhones to multi-million-dollar brands—and why belief in self had to come before the checks ever did. They talk imposter syndrome, the lies we tell ourselves about “failure,” and how cultural capital can become financial power if you’re willing to bet on your own genius. If you've ever doubted your purpose or felt like you're building alone—this conversation will make you feel seen, charged up, and ready to pivot like a boss.Larry Morrow is a New Orleans–based hospitality mogul, entrepreneur, and community builder known for creating some of the city’s most successful restaurants and nightlife experiences.Rashad Bilal is the co-founder of Earn Your Leisure and a financial educator whose work breaks down wealth-building for everyday people.Troy Millings is the co-founder of Earn Your Leisure and a former educator turned media entrepreneur dedicated to making financial literacy accessible and culturally relevant.David Shands is an entrepreneur, author, and host of the Social Proof Podcast, known for spotlighting real stories of business success and practical lessons from top creators and founders.This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#EarnYourLeisure #LarryMorrow #DavidShands #BaldwinAndCo #BlackEntrepreneurs #BlackWealth #CulturalCapital #BuildYourOwn #EntrepreneurMindset #OwnershipMentality #GenerationalWealth #BusinessCulture #CreativeEconomy #FromTheGroundUp #SelfBelief #FinancialLiteracy #BlackOwnedBusinesses #PurposeDriven #SocialProof #HustleWithIntent

Grammy-nominated vocalist Tonya Boyd-Cannon and celebrated visual artist Charly Palmer engage in a riveting, soul-baring conversation that moves between art, ancestry, mental health, and creative purpose. With disarming honesty, they explore how grief, trauma, and generational memory shape their work—and why Black artists must create from spirit, not ego. From Palmer’s reflections on using flowers as both beauty and protection, to Boyd-Cannon’s revelation of how roses became emotional triggers, the two uncover how creation becomes a sacred act of survival and healing. The conversation crescendos into a powerful meditation on legacy, water as a spiritual medium, the sacredness of altars, and Blackness as a universal, unshakable force. What emerges is a profound testimony: art is not decoration—its declaration, remembrance, and resistance.This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#CharlyPalmer #TonyaBoydCannon  #BlackArtMatters #ArtAsResistance #CreateFromSpirit #BlackCreatives #HealingThroughArt #GriefAndCreation #SacredNotSafe #BaldwinAndCo #BlackArtistsUnite #ArtAndAncestry #VisualHealing #EmotionalArtistry #AncestralLegacy #CanvasOfTruth #WaterAsWisdom #AltarsInArt #TriggeredByBeauty #ArtForThePeople #BlackStorytellers #CulturalMemory #ExpressionWithoutPermission #VoiceAndVision #SpiritLedArt #kwamealexander #howsweetthesound

In a wide-ranging, unguarded conversation, Malcolm Gladwell and former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu use the city itself as a lens to examine America’s deeper fractures. What begins as a meditation on why New Orleans remains stubbornly, almost defiantly distinctive—resisting the cultural flattening seen in cities like Austin and Nashville—quickly expands into a larger argument: culture, not capital, is what holds societies together. Music, food, sport, and place are not luxuries, they argue, but the glue that sustains democracy when institutions falter. In New Orleans, joy and pain live side by side, producing a civic soul that cannot be replicated or scaled without losing its truth. From there, the conversation turns darker and more urgent. Landrieu warns that the United States is living through one of the most dangerous moments in its history—not because of disagreement, but because of a growing comfort with autocracy and a collapsing ability to talk across difference. Gladwell probes whether America’s aging population, economic anxiety, and nostalgia for an imagined past are fueling fear rather than curiosity about the future. Together, they trace how trauma—from Katrina to 9/11 to economic precarity—has eroded trust, and why art, culture, and local community may be the last remaining pathways back to common ground. The message is unsettling but clear: democracies do not collapse all at once; they wither when people stop listening to one another, and when culture is treated as expendable rather than essential.This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange.Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future.Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms:Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.comVisit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter.#MalcolmGladwell #MitchLandrieu #AmericasDangerousMoment #DemocracyInCrisis #CultureMatters #TheSoulOfAmerica #NewOrleans #CivicLife #ArtAndDemocracy #CulturalResilience #PoliticalDialogue #ListeningAcrossDifference #AmericanDemocracy #PublicIntellectuals #IdeasThatMatter #HardConversations #DemocracyAndCulture #AmericanFuture #CulturalIdentity #ThinkingOutLoud 

Dr. Daniel Black and Avery Young" "This conversation is a masterclass in Black language, music, spirituality, and survival. Dr. Daniel Black and Avery Young explore how Black people have always communicated with more than words—through rhythm, silence, gesture, melody, and the body itself. From church songs and blues traditions to humming, repetition, and coded speech, they break down how Black expression became a form of protection, resistance, and joy when speech alone wasn’t safe. Moving between personal stories, theology, music, and history, they reveal how gospel and blues are really the same language spoken in different places, and how Black idiomatic expression carries memory, meaning, and power that English alone can’t hold. At its core, the conversation is about survival and freedom—the idea that the real assignment in life is to walk fully as yourself, bring your whole body into the room, and trust that collective rhythm can carry you across even the deepest waters.Dr. Daniel Black is an award-winning novelist and professor whose work excavates Black memory, masculinity, spirituality, and survival with surgical honesty and poetic force. Some of his most notable books are, Perfect Peace, Don't Cry For Me, Isaac's Song, The Coming, Black on Black and The Sacred Place. Avery Young is a poet, the first Chicago poet laureate, he is a composer, and cultural worker whose artistry fuses music, movement, and ancestral knowledge to reveal how Black expression has always carried meaning beyond words.#DanielBlack #AveryYoung #BlackArt #BlackLiterature #BlackPoetry #CreativeDialogue #CulturalMemory #HealingThroughArt #StorytellingAsResistance #BlackIntellectualTradition #ArtAndLiberation #BlackThought #SpokenWord #LiteraryConversations #CulturalWorkers #BaldwinAndCo #BlackCreativity #RadicalImagination