n this episode, I sit down with Allyn Maxwell Steele, co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center — one of the most influential yet often overlooked institutions in American social movement history. Founded in 1932, Highlander played a critical role in shaping labor organizing, the Civil Rights Movement, and grassroots leadership across generations, hosting figures like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and Septima Clark. But Highlander isn’t just history — it’s a living institution that continues to train organizers and communities today.

Our conversation explores what it actually takes to build movements that last, how leadership is cultivated rather than born, and why spaces for collective learning remain essential in moments of political and social tension. We also discuss Highlander’s resilience — from government targeting during the Red Scare to modern-day attacks — and what its survival reveals about the enduring struggle for democracy in America.

This episode is ultimately about power: where it comes from, how ordinary people learn to claim it, and why institutions like Highlander still matter in shaping the future.

In the Bronx, there’s a photograph that feels less like it was taken and more like it was found. Captured by photographer David Gonzalez, the image shows two Afro-Latino dancers, possibly Puerto Rican, moving together in the middle of a city street. No stage. No spotlight. Just a shared rhythm as brick buildings, hanging flags, and everyday life blur into the background.

This photograph isn’t about spectacle — it’s about presence. It captures Black and Brown joy without performance, intimacy without explanation, and love that exists openly in a public space. The street becomes a dance floor. Time slows. And for one brief moment, the city makes room for tenderness.

In this episode of Learn Something New Today, we unpack what this image teaches us about culture, migration, memory, and identity in the Bronx. We explore how Afro-Latino life, particularly Puerto Rican life in New York City, has long turned ordinary spaces into sites of creativity and resistance — and how joy itself can be historical.

Because history isn’t only written in protests, policies, or pain. Sometimes, it lives in the quiet confidence of two people choosing each other — right there in the street — reminding us that survival, too, can look like a dance.

This conversation was recorded before the capture of Nicolás Maduro, at a moment when Venezuela stood in deep uncertainty, but also quiet hope. In this episode, I sit down with Venezuelan historian Amanda Arroyo to talk about her country—not as a headline or a political chessboard, but as a place filled with people, memories, contradictions, and dreams.

Amanda shares what it feels like to watch Venezuela from both inside and outside its borders, reflecting on the daily realities Venezuelans live with, the historical forces that shaped the present, and the futures many still imagine despite everything. We talk about grief, resilience, misinformation, and what it means to hold love for a country that has been consistently misunderstood, exploited, or spoken over.

Some details may feel rooted in a moment that has since shifted, but that is precisely why this conversation matters. It captures Venezuelan thought and feeling before events were reframed by power, propaganda, or outside intervention. Above all, this episode is about listening—to Venezuelans, to their fears, and to their enduring hope for dignity, self-determination, and a future on their own terms.

Venezuelan voices matter. This episode makes space for them.