In December 1993, three people were murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska: Brandon Teena, Lisa Lambert, and Philip DeVine. While Brandon Teena's story became nationally known, Philip DeVine a twenty-two-year-old Black man was nearly erased from public memory.

This episode centers Philip DeVine's life, presence, and death, and examines how race, media framing, and popular culture shaped which victims were remembered and which were forgotten.

In this episode, we explore:
• Who Philip DeVine was and why he was in the home
• The events of December 31, 1993
• How the legal system documented all three victims
• How Philip was removed from national storytelling
• The role of race in victim erasure
• Why restoring Philip's name matters today

All resources used to build this story are listed in the show notes so you can explore this further.

New episodes of Beyond the Table are released every Tuesday.

Follow the show on Instagram: @AmandaPaints1214

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Email: beyondthetablecast@gmail.com

Journalism and Reporting
• NBC News — "Man pleads guilty in teen lesbian's slaying"
• Associated Press (AP) — Coverage of the murders, arrests, and trials
• Lincoln Journal Star — Local reporting on the 1993 triple homicide
• Omaha World-Herald — Trial and sentencing coverage

Documentaries
• The Brandon Teena Story (1998) — Documentary that references the full case
• Boys Don't Cry (1999) — Referenced for cultural context and erasure analysis

Academic and Cultural Analysis
• C. Riley Snorton — Black on Both Sides
• Jack Halberstam — In a Queer Time and Place

Written and produced by Amanda Clemons

© 2025 Beyond the Table. All rights reserved

In this episode, we explore the rise and fall of the Black mall one of the most important and overlooked cultural spaces in late twentieth-century America. From segregation-era restrictions to the emergence of malls as Black social hubs in the 1980s and 1990s, this episode traces how Black consumers reshaped retail, identity, and community across generations.

We take you through the history of restricted access, postwar suburbanization, the migration of Black families into new commercial spaces, and the cultural energy that made malls feel like community centers, fashion runways, and social worlds.

We also look at the economic forces that led to mall decline and what remains culturally, even after the escalators stopped.

New episodes of Beyond the Table release every Tuesday.

Follow the show on Instagram: @AmandaPaints1214

Tictok: beyondthetablepod
Email: beyondthetablecast@gmail.com

• Business Insider — "The rise and fall of the American Shopping Mall"

• Brookings Institution - Black Buying Power

• Atlas Obscura — "The Life and Death of the American Mall"

• Forbes - "It's the End of the Mall As We Know It ... And I Feel Fine"

Written and produced by Amanda Clemons

© 2025 Beyond the Table. All rights reserved

In May 2003, fifteen-year-old Sakia Gunn a Black lesbian girl from Newark was murdered in an act of homophobic violence that most of the nation never heard about. This true crime episode centers her humanity, her courage, and the community that refused to let her story disappear.

In this victim-centered true crime episode, we explore:
• Newark's queer youth culture in the early 2000s
• Who Sakia was before the violence
• The events of that night and the immediate aftermath
• The media's near-total silence
• The community response and marches
• How Sakia's death shaped visibility, advocacy, and safety for Black LGBTQ youth

New episodes of Beyond the Table release every Tuesday.

Follow the show on Instagram: @BeyondTableShow
Email: beyondthetablecast@gmail.com

If this episode moved you, please rate the show and share it. That support helps this work reach more listeners.

• Out In Jersey — "Remembering Sakia Gunn"
A reflective community piece honoring Sakia's life, her identity, and the legacy she left in New Jersey's LGBTQ community.

• The Murder of Sakia Gunn and LGBT Anti-Violence Mobilization
An academic analysis exploring how Sakia's death shaped queer mobilization, community safety efforts, and political responses to anti-LGBTQ violence.

• NBC — "Man pleads guilty in teen lesbian's slaying"
A national news report covering the plea, legal outcome, and official statements regarding Sakia's case.

• Queer Newark Oral History Project — Rutgers University
A digital archive preserving oral histories, community memory, and Newark LGBTQ history, including reflections connected to Sakia's impact.

• The Advocate — Remembering Sakia
Coverage from a national LGBTQ publication highlighting how Sakia's murder affected queer youth, local organizing, and community grief.

Written and produced by Amanda Clemons
© 2025 Beyond the Table. All rights reserved.

Echoes of the Feast: A Thanksgiving History of Food, Culture, and Tradition is a cinematic, time-traveling journey through the real story of the American Thanksgiving meal. This episode moves across centuries to reveal how each dish on the table came to be — shaped by Indigenous agricultural knowledge, colonial hardship, national mythmaking, Black culinary traditions, migration, and modern reinvention.

Through immersive soundscapes and historical narration, the episode traces:

• Indigenous harvest practices of corn, beans, squash, wild turkey, and maple sugar

• The reality of seventeenth-century survival and why the 1621 gathering was not the first "Thanksgiving"

• Nineteenth-century writers and political leaders who invented the holiday as a unifying national tradition

• The deep influence of Black cooks in the post-emancipation South, whose foodways transformed the holiday table

• The Great Migration, which carried Southern dishes — including dressing, sweet potatoes, greens, and macaroni and cheese — into cities across the country

• The rise of industrial food brands like Ocean Spray, Libby's, and Campbell's, which standardized the mid-twentieth-century Thanksgiving menu

• And the modern feast, shaped by chosen families, fusion dishes, cultural diversity, and evolving traditions

This is not a story about myth.
It is a story about people — about how history, culture, and memory have shaped the meal we recognize today.

Echoes of the Feast is part of the Beyond the Table Thanksgiving arc, alongside:
• What's Cooking — a cultural exploration of the 2000 film and the families it brings to the table
• Thanksgiving, Everywhere — a journey across global gratitude traditions and how communities honor harvest, survival, and gathering

If Beyond the Table resonates with you, please follow, rate, and share the show. Your support helps these stories reach more listeners.

Written and produced by Amanda Clemons.

Resources:

• "What Was Eaten at the First Thanksgiving?" — History.com

• "The Story Behind Thanksgiving's Most Polarizing Dish" — Food & Wine

• "How the Traditional Thanksgiving Feast Has Evolved Over Centuries" — National Geographic

• "African American Origins to Thanksgiving Foods" — TN Tribune

• "At Black Thanksgiving, both body and soul are fed" — Los Angeles Times

• "How Thanksgiving Cuisine Earned a Place at the Table" — Library of Congress Blog

• "Why Do We Eat Turkey on Thanksgiving?" — Britannica

• "As an African American Who Loves Thanksgiving, Must I Simply Ignore the Historical Suffering…" — Religion Dispatches

To mark the film's 25th anniversary, this episode revisits What's Cooking? (2000) a groundbreaking multicultural Thanksgiving film directed by Gurinder Chadha.

Four families. Four kitchens. One holiday lived through Black, Latin, Vietnamese, and Jewish identities including one of the earliest and most tender portrayals of queer family truth in early 2000s cinema.

Amanda explores why this film was ahead of its time, how it reflected the real America long before Hollywood embraced intersectionality, and why its message still matters today.

Listen to Thanksgiving Everywhere a tour of gratitude festivals and harvest traditions around the world.

Stay tuned for Echoes of the Feast, one meal told across centuries, where every table keeps a piece of history."

• Emanuel Levy, "What's Cooking? Film Review" – Variety (2000).
• Kevin Thomas, "'What's Cooking?' Simmers in Los Angeles Melting Pot" – LA Times (2000).
• Mary Pattillo, Black Picket Fences (University of Chicago Press, 1999)
• Karyn Lacy, Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class (University of California Press, 2007)
• Rubén G. Rumbaut – "Assimilation and Its Discontents" (International Migration Review)
• Jay Michaelson – "Queer Theology and the Traditions of Judaism"
• Loan Thi Dao – "Negotiating Culture: Intergenerational Conflict in Vietnamese American Families"Journal of Comparative Family Studies
• Andrea Weiss – Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film (Penguin, 1992)
• Patricia White – UnInvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability (Indiana University Press, 1999)
• Dan Jurafsky, The Language of Food (W. W. Norton, 2014)
  

Contains a brief excerpt from the official What's Cooking? (2000) theatrical trailer — © Lions Gate Films. Used under fair use for commentary and criticism.

Written & Produced by Amanda Clemons
Instagram: @BeyondTableShow
Email: beyondthetablecast@gmail.com

You can find Beyond the Table wherever you listen to podcasts — including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio.

Copyright © 2025 Beyond the Table Podcast.
All rights reserved.

In this bonus episode of Beyond the Table, we explore the power, defiance, and cultural impact of Living Colour the groundbreaking Black rock band that reshaped the sound and politics of late-20th-century rock.

From Cult of Personaility to Desperate People to Funny Vibe and Which Way to America, we examine how their music confronted racism, capitalism, and identity while redefining what Black artistry in rock could be.

We also look at Corey Glover's solo album Hymns especially "One" and "Little Girl" and how his vocal storytelling deepens the band's emotional legacy.

This episode blends history, cultural memory, and musical meaning into a ten-minute immersive story.

A curated selection of songs inspired by this episode.
🎧 Listen on Spotify: Living Colour Sound, Rage & Revolution
Living Colour: Sound Rage & Revolution

Living Colour

• Cult of Personality

• Desperate People

• Funny Vibe

• What's Your Favorite Color

• Which Way to America

• Open Letter to a Landlord

Corey Glover — Hymns

• One

• Little Girl

1. Rolling Stone – "Living Colour on Their Legacy and the Future of Black Rock"

2. Guitar Player Magazine – "Vernon Reid Breaks Down His Sound"

3. NPR Music – "Living Colour: Cult of Personality and the Politics of Rock"

4. The Guardian – "Living Colour: Still Loud, Still Necessary"

5. New York Times Archive – Coverage of Vivid and Time's Up

6. Black Rock Coalition Manifesto – Founding Principles (Vernon Reid co-founder)

7. Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds

8. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America by Tricia Rose

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or iHeartRadio, it helps the show grow.

Instagram: @BeyondTableShow
Email: beyondthetablecast@gmail.com

Before there was an American Thanksgiving, there was gratitude spoken in every language under the sun.

In this immersive episode, Beyond the Table travels across continents and centuries to explore how people around the world give thanks through food, ritual, and community. From the yam festivals of West Africa to Caribbean Harvest Sundays, Indigenous harvest ceremonies, and modern diaspora feasts — Thanksgiving, Everywhere reveals that gratitude isn't bound by borders or myth.

Written and produced by Amanda Clemons, this story-rich soundscape blends history, memory, and music to remind us that giving thanks is not a holiday it's a way of living.

Explore the episode references below to learn more:

🌍 Cultural & Historical References:

• Jessica B. Harris, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (Bloomsbury, 2011)

• Michael W. Twitty, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South (Amistad, 2017)

• Toni Tipton-Martin, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks (University of Texas Press, 2015)

• Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (Random House, 2010)

• Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage – African American Foodways Collection

• National Museum of the American Indian – Harvest and Green Corn Ceremony Resources

• Caribbean "Harvest Sunday" traditions documented by the Barbados Museum & Historical Society and Jamaica's Institute of Jamaica

If this episode resonated with you, share it stories like these travel best by word of mouth.
To connect with me, email beyondthetablecast@gmail.com or follow at @beyondtableshow on Instagram.
You can find Beyond the Table wherever you listen to podcasts — including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio.

This November, Beyond the Table explores stories of gratitude and belonging where culture, memory, and meaning come together in sound.

Hosted and produced by Amanda Clemons, this special preview invites you to pull up a seat for a month of reflection, creativity, and connection.

New stories every Tuesday.