On this episode of The Next World, we focus on the organization Moms 4 Housing. Our guests are two members of the organization, Carroll Fife, Director of the Oakland chapter of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and current candidate for Oakland’s District 3 City Council seat, and housing activist Dominique Walker, who participated in the first Moms 4 Housing housing takeover. Carroll and Dominique joined host Max Rameau to discuss what brought them to the act of civil disobedience of moving families into empty housing in Oakland, how they are handling the current pandemic, and what is next in the movement for housing. The episode also features an introduction and closing poem from Sha’Condria ‘iCon’ Sibley.
Dominique Walker is a member of Moms 4 Housing who participated in the Oakland takeover and lived at the house with her family.
Carroll Fife is an on-the-ground organizer, educator, mother and 20-year resident of Oakland. She has served as co-founder and co-chair of the Oakland Alliance, Oakland Justice Coalition, and the Community Ready Corps where she works to create racial justice and increase access to quality jobs, housing, and education for those who need them most. Carroll is the founder of Black Women in Elected Leadership PAC and an elected member of the Oakland NAACP’s Executive Committee. In 2014, she served as the Campaign Coordinator for a mayoral race that became the City’s political compass and in 2016 she ran Oakland’s first African American, all-female slate. She currently serves as Director of the Oakland/San Francisco Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and is a candidate for Oakland’s District 3 City Council seat.
As an artist, Sha’Condria ‘iCon’ Sibley stands for and represents for those whose names are often overlooked and whose voices are silenced in today’s society. Her work has been featured on many national and international outlets such as Upworthy, Huffington Post, For Harriet, Fusion, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue, and BET.com, especially after her poem “To All the Little Black Girls With Big Names” went viral on social media. As a result, she also founded The Little Girls Big Names Project, which aims to encourage women and girls with unique names as well as combat name discrimination and stigma surrounding unorthodox names. She also works teaching poetry to inmates at a federal correctional facility. She can be found all over the country performing on numerous stages and teaching workshops from colleges and universities to corner cyphers and living rooms. See more at https://icontheartist.com, and look out for her new book, My Name is Pronounced Holy, this summer!
See more of the work of host Max Rameau at pacapower.org. Stay subscribed to The Next World for more news from the frontlines of movements for justice and liberation.
Thank you to Jesse Strauss for Audio Mixing and Editing.
You can read more about the issues we explore on our podcast and much more at dignityandrights.org, the website of Partners for Dignity & Rights.
Please subscribe, spread the word, and support the show.
Support the show (http://dignityandrights.org)
