In the season finale of The North Star, JeffriAnne Wilder, Ph.D. sits down with legendary educator, anthropologist, and social justice activist Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Ph.D., Oberlin alumna, former president of Spelman and Bennett Colleges, and past director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art—for a powerful conversation about a life shaped by Oberlin, sisterhood, and an unwavering commitment to equity. Dr. Cole shares intimate stories of intergenerational Black excellence, from her great-grandfather A. L. Lewis, Florida’s first Black millionaire, to her own path from Fisk to Oberlin, where she discovered anthropology and learned to follow passion over prescription. She offers candid wisdom for today’s students and emerging leaders about being “intellectually naked,” embracing purpose, and treating self-care as political—noting, in conversation with Audre Lorde’s famous words, that neglecting her own health had lifelong consequences even as she helped transform institutions and movements around the world, making her presence as the closing guest of this season all the more profound.

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Podcast Produced by: Paradigm Media Group