In this special crossover episode of the Urban Roots podcast and the Columbia GSAPP’s Historic Preservation Podcast, host Deqah Hussein-Wetzel has a Black history and preservation-focused conversation with award-winning journalist and historian A’Lelia Bundles about her newest book Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance. A’Lelia Walker—daughter of Madam C.J. Walker and heiress to America’s first Black woman-made fortune—was more than a symbol of inherited wealth. She was a cultural impresario, a connector of artists and activists, and an architectural patron whose Vertner Tandy-designed Villa Lewaro Estate and (rehabbed) Harlem townhouse became vital gathering places for the Black intelligentsia of the 1920s.

Together, Deqah and A’Lelia Bundles, the great-granddaughter of A’Lelia Walker, explore her interest in her family's history and what she’s learned about her ancestor's role in shaping Harlem’s cultural landscape through hospitality, preservation, and community. The episode also delves into the challenges of researching Black women’s histories, the overlooked architectural legacy of Vertner Tandy, and the significance of cultural memory in contemporary preservation work.

🔗 More about her book: https://aleliabundles.com/writing-biography-an-update-on-the-joy-goddess-of-harlem

🎧Listen to the full interview on Columbia GSAPP’s Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/columbiagsapp

Credits:

Your host and producer is Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. This episode was edited by Skyler Ficklin and Vanessa Quirk. Mixed by Skyler.

Urban Roots⁠ is a project by ⁠Urbanist Media⁠, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story.

Subscribe on YouTube (and Patreon/Substack for exclusive content)!

Follow Urban Roots on Instagram at ⁠urbanrootsculture⁠ and at urbanrootspod

In this bonus episode, Deqah unpacks equitable preservation-based development with Bree Jones, the Founder and CEO of Parity, an equitable development company headquartered in West Baltimore that acquires and rehabilitates abandoned properties by the block to create affordable home ownership opportunities. Bree started Parity in 2020 as a response to the gentrification and displacement she experienced in her hometown in NYC.

Here, Deqah and Bree discuss the various levels of economic disinvestment that create hyper-vacancy and decay. Instead of pushing people out of their legacy lands and neighborhoods, Bree and the folks at Parity have envisioned a new way to develop, one that disengages from traditional, top-down forms of planning to combat gentrification and other historical place-based inequities such as America’s legacy of urban renewal. Through this new approach, Bree has successfully generated over $60 million of investment in Black communities.

Bree Jones is the CEO & Founder of Parity, a culturalist and nationally recognized systems change leader focused on revaluing Black neighborhoods and engendering Black wealth. If you haven’t already, we recommend you watch her TED Talk, How to Revitalize a Neighborhood – Without Gentrification, that explicates this innovative vision.

This episode is sponsored by Loyola University Maryland’s Sellinger School of Business and Management. Loyola University Maryland is a Baltimore-based institution that believes in the power of community builders.

Credits:

Your host is Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. This episode was edited by Deqah, Connor Lynch, Skyler Ficklin, and Vanessa Quirk. Mixing by Connor Lynch. Our music is by Adaam James Levin-Areddy.

Urban Roots⁠ is a project by ⁠Urbanist Media⁠, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story. Please consider supporting our work by donating to us via ⁠Venmo⁠ or ⁠Paypal⁠.

Subscribe to our YouTube (and Patreon for exclusive content)!

Want to sponsor a bonus episode? Email us at: urbanrootspodcast@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram at ⁠urbanrootsculture⁠

We at Urbanist Media (and the Urban Roots podcast) are excited to have, yet again, celebrated Juneteenth with Cincinnati Public Radio.

This year, we produced brand new ⁠Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts⁠: weekly, 90-second tributes to people and places important to Cincinnati Black history and African American history. This one is all about the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs…

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Tucked away on Chapel Street in Walnut Hills, this short takes you to the Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, which, for over a century, has continued to serve as a hub for Black women’s activism. Founded in 1904 by Mary Fletcher Ross, the Federation united local clubs to provide education and social services that, at the time, weren’t available to the Black community. In 1925, members purchased the Hannaford-designed mansion on Chapel Street that still stands today, transforming it into a lasting symbol of resilience, sisterhood, and civic leadership.

Listen to the entire archive (2023-2025) on Cincinnati Public Radio's website: https://cinradio.org/juneteenth-special-programming-from-urbanist-media/

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Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts is brought to you by Urbanist Media’s Urban Roots podcast team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (Executive Producer / Host & Narrator), Tania Mohammad (Producer / Story Editor), Vanessa Maria Quirk (Story Editor), and Connor Lynch (Audio Editor / Mixer).

We at Urbanist Media (and the Urban Roots podcast) are excited to have, yet again, celebrated Juneteenth with Cincinnati Public Radio.

This year, we produced brand new ⁠Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts⁠: weekly, 90-second tributes to people and places important to Cincinnati Black history and African American history. This one is all about Dr. Lucy Orinthia Oxley….

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Dr. Lucy Oxley broke barriers as the first Black graduate of UC’s medical program in 1935, only to be denied internships due to discrimination. Undeterred, she found opportunities at historically Black colleges outside Cincinnati and eventually returned to open a private practice, first in Walnut Hills and later in Avondale. This short dives into Dr. Oxley’s story as a local pioneer in family medicine.

Listen to the entire archive (2023-2025) on Cincinnati Public Radio's website: https://cinradio.org/juneteenth-special-programming-from-urbanist-media/

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Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts is brought to you by Urbanist Media’s Urban Roots podcast team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (Executive Producer / Host & Narrator), Tania Mohammad (Producer / Story Editor), Vanessa Maria Quirk (Story Editor), and Connor Lynch (Audio Editor / Mixer).

We at ⁠Urbanist Media⁠ (and the Urban Roots podcast⁠) are excited to have, yet again, celebrated Juneteenth with Cincinnati Public Radio.

This year, we produced brand new ⁠Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts⁠: weekly, 90-second tributes to people and places important to Cincinnati Black history and African American history. This one is all about Jennie Davis Porter….

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Jennie Davis Porter was a trailblazing educator in Walnut Hills before she opened the all-Black Harriet Beecher Stowe School in 1914 in the West End (an effort that sparked controversy), and she became Cincinnati’s first Black female principal. In 1928, she became the first African American woman to earn a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. This short tells the story of Jennie Porter and the cultural legacy she left behind in our great city.

Listen to the entire archive (2023-2025) on Cincinnati Public Radio's website: https://cinradio.org/juneteenth-special-programming-from-urbanist-media/

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Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts is brought to you by Urbanist Media’s Urban Roots podcast team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (Executive Producer / Host & Narrator), Tania Mohammad (Producer / Story Editor), Vanessa Maria Quirk (Story Editor), and Connor Lynch (Audio Editor / Mixer).

We at Urbanist Media⁠ (and the Urban Roots podcast⁠) are excited to have, yet again, celebrated Juneteenth with Cincinnati Public Radio.

This year, we produced brand new ⁠Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts⁠: weekly, 90-second tributes to people and places important to Cincinnati Black history and African American history. This first one is all about Robert S. Duncanson and his connection to the ⁠Taft Museum of Art⁠⁠!

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Born in 1821, Robert S. Duncanson became a nationally celebrated 19th-century African American landscape artist who built his career in the Cincinnati area. In 1850, Duncanson murals were commissioned by Nicholas Longworth (a local white abolitionist and famous landowner) for his home, which is now the ⁠Taft Museum of Art⁠ building. You can visit the museum to see Duncanson’s murals today, and, if you find yourself in Washington, D.C., you can see his landscape paintings on display at the ⁠Smithsonian American Art Museum⁠.

Listen to the entire archive (2023-2025) on Cincinnati Public Radio's website: https://cinradio.org/juneteenth-special-programming-from-urbanist-media/

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Juneteenth Cincinnati Shorts is brought to you by Urbanist Media’s Urban Roots podcast team: Deqah Hussein-Wetzel (Executive Producer / Host & Narrator), Tania Mohammad (Producer / Story Editor), Vanessa Maria Quirk (Story Editor), and Connor Lynch (Audio Editor / Mixer).

In this episode of the Urban Roots podcast, host Deqah Hussein-Wetzel sits down with two accomplished Cincinnati-based Black architects—David Kirk, President and CEO of DNK Architects, and Michael Burson, a longtime (now retired) architect who has worked extensively with Cincinnati Public Schools, and now serves as an owners representative for local architectural projects ---including the Robert O’Neal Multicultural Arts Center’s (ROMAC) rehabilitation of the Regal Theatre in Cincinnati’s West End neighborhood.

Guests David and Michael expand on how and why they fell in love with the profession and what the road to licensing looked like for both of them. In a field where only 2.8% of licensed architects are African American, Michael and David are the definition of architects who opened doors.

Being that Deqah worked closely with David and Michael to preserve the Regal Theatre and help Toilynn O’Neal Turner’s vision of the ROMAC take shape, this episode also celebrates our shared success in securing BOTH Federal & State Historic Tax Credits, which supports monetary funding for the project! If you don’t remember what the Regal Theatre is all about, you can go back to Juneteenth Cincinnati Short to learn more about the building's rich African American history.

PS: On Saturday, March 29th, Deqah is moderating a 9 AM panel discussion with panelists Michael, David, and Toilynn at the 2025 Invest in Neighborhoods Summit titled, Rehabbing the Regal: Community-Driven Approaches to Black Cultural Preservation and Neighborhood Redevelopment

And a huge thanks to our episode sponsor, Hub+Weber, for helping us continue to promote equity in the built environment. Hub+Weber is a Cincinnati-based architecture firm founded in 1973 that does more than renderings and construction documents — they are creative problem solvers who understand that each project is more than just a building to their clients. Founded in 1973, this architecture firm has has a long legacy in Cincinnati’s built environment.

Urbanist Media thanks Hub+Weber for their continued support and for sharing our values in promoting equity within the built environment.

Thank you to guests David Kirk and Michael Burson, and sponsors, Hub+Weber, who helped make this episode possible. This podcast is brought to you by Urbanist Media and is hosted by Deqah Hussein-Wetzel. Editing by Deqah, Connor Lynch, and Skyler Ficklin. Mixing by Connor Lynch. Our music is by Adaam James Levin-Areddy.

Urban Roots is brought to you by Urbanist Media, a non-profit that preserves place through story. You can make a tax-deductible donation to us via Venmo or Paypal.

Follow us on IG at urbanrootsculture. Drop us an email urbanrootspodcast@gmail.com

In this bonus episode, Deqah and Vanessa have a much-needed conversation with Erica Allen-Kim about her new—must-read—book, Building Little Saigon: Refugee Urbanism in American Cities and Suburbs, about Vietnamese American-built landscapes and cultural heritage. In this interview, Deqah and Vanessa dive deeper into themes from her book to explore the role that Vietnamese Americans played in physically and socially shaping their ethnic neighborhoods in American (and Canadian) cities and suburbs. They discuss how refugee and immigrant communities adapted urban spaces to meet their needs, the importance of Asian American preservation efforts, community advocacy, and legacy preservation, and the challenges these communities face today to remain extant.

Erica Allen-Kim is an Associate Professor in the University of Toronto’s Department of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Her newest book, Building Little Saigon: Refugee Urbanism in American Cities and Suburbs, is out now and available for purchase!

Credits:

Your hosts are Deqah Hussein-Wetzel and Vanessa Quirk. This episode was edited by Deqah, Vanessa, and Skyler Ficklin. Mixing by Connor Lynch. Our music is by Adaam James Levin-Areddy.

Urban Roots is a project by Urbanist Media, a non-profit dedicated to preserving place through story.

Even though we do need money to keep going, we try not to spam you with ads. Instead, we add the occasional giving plug, encouraging our listeners to support us by giving. Anything helps, even $10 or $20. Please consider sending us a donation via ⁠Venmo⁠ or ⁠Paypal⁠.

*Want to give big? Consider sponsoring a bonus episode. Email us at: urbanrootspodcast@gmail.com

Follow us on IG at ⁠urbanrootsculture⁠ and on YouTube (⁠Urban Roots podcast⁠). Have a thought or question – drop us an e-mail