The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy

Ep 36: Love is Love: LGBTQIA+ Liberation Movements and the Long Road to Democracy

Love is love is not sentiment alone. It is a declaration, a demand, a democracy still unfinished. In this episode, Dr. Reiland Rabaka traces the long and defiant arc of LGBTQIA+ liberation movements in America, from the hidden corners of pre-Stonewall queer life to the fury of the 1969 riots, through the grief and militancy of the AIDS crisis, and into today's ongoing battles over transgender rights, bodily autonomy, and human dignity. Throughout, this episode places special emphasis on Black LGBTQIA+ voices, voices too often marginalized even within movements for liberation, because when Black queer people fight for freedom, they expand the very meaning of freedom itself. Music accompanies this journey not merely as entertainment, but as archive and altar. Dr. Rabaka explores disco as one of the great democratic soundscapes of the 20th century, celebrates Sylvester and the prophetic power of house music, and honors the Black feminist intellectual tradition of Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, and the Combahee River Collective. He restores the full complexity of Stonewall, centers Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, and traces the cultural explosions that followed, from ballroom houses and chosen families to the courage of ACT UP and the searing poetry of Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam. From the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges to contemporary figures like Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, Janelle Monáe, and Lil Nas X, Dr. Rabaka asks the hard question: is representation enough? He affirms the transformative democratic tradition of Black queer feminism, reminds us that backlash is the predictable companion of democratic progress, and insists that once people begin imagining freedom differently, the old order can never fully restore itself. See all show notes and the "Love is Love" playlist on our website. [https://www.colorado.edu/center/caaas/podcast/episodes/episode-36-love-love-lgbtqia-liberation-movements-and-long-road-democracy]

Ep 35: "Black Is Beautiful!": The Black Aesthetic and The Black Arts Movement, 1965-1975

Black is beautiful is not a slogan alone, but a summons, a call to consciousness, a chorus of reclamation rising from a people long told to doubt their own reflection. In this episode, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores the Black Arts Movement, 1965 to 1975, a decade when art was insurgent and imagination was organized, when poetry marched and music mobilized, when theater testified and painting proclaimed. This was a time when culture did not trail politics. Culture led politics, setting the terms, shaping the language, sounding the future. The story of the Black Arts Movement does not begin in 1965. It begins earlier in the Harlem Renaissance, where Black artists first insisted that Black life was worthy of its own forms, languages, and light. By the 1960s, into the breach left by persistent inequality stepped the Black Power Movement, a call for self-determination, community control, and cultural pride. Alongside it rose the Black Arts Movement, the aesthetic arm of the Black Power Movement. If the Harlem Renaissance asked, "Who are we in modern America?" the Black Arts Movement answered, "We are what we make, and we will make it Black, bold, and beautiful." Dr. Rabaka examines the Black Aesthetic as a constellation of commitments that insisted Black art must emerge from Black experience, speak to Black communities, and serve Black liberation. It rejected the demand to conform to Eurocentric standards of beauty and embraced art for the people's necessity. The Black Aesthetic said: our rhythms are valid, our language is literature, our bodies are sites of knowledge, our communities are audiences and authors alike. It was both critique of a world that devalues Black life and creation of forms that revalue it. See all show notes and the special playlist on our website. [https://www.colorado.edu/center/caaas/podcast/episodes/episode-35-black-beautiful-black-aesthetic-and-black-arts-movement-1965-1975]

Ep 34: The Harlem Renaissance: Early 20th Century Afro-Modernism

The Harlem Renaissance was not merely a moment. It was a movement, a meditation, a declaration that Black life, Black art, Black thought, and Black being would no longer be bound by the narrow scripts of a nation unsure of its own democracy. In this episode, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores the Harlem Renaissance as early 20th century Afro-modernism, a transformative period when Black people dared to ask: Who are we beyond the shadow of slavery? Who are we beyond imposed scripts? Who are we when we name ourselves? The New Negro Movement emerged as both a political and philosophical reorientation. It was not merely about rights, though it demanded them. It was about redefinition, replacing the old Negro (a figure fabricated by white supremacist imagination) with a self-determined subject who would speak, create, think, and act on their own terms. The Harlem Renaissance was the aesthetic and cultural expression of this deeper movement, the New Negro's heartbeat made audible. Dr. Rabaka examines literary Afro-modernism through the work of Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote with the rhythms of the South and captured Black folk life with dignity and depth, Claude McKay, who gave us defiance in verse, and Langston Hughes, who sang the blues on the page and made poetry move like jazz. These writers refused respectability politics and embraced Blackness in all its complexity. See all show notes and The Harlem Renaissance playlist [https://www.colorado.edu/center/caaas/podcast/episodes/episode-34-harlem-renaissance-early-20th-century-afro-modernism]

Ep 33: The CAAAS 5-Year Anniversary Episode: Building the Beloved Community at CU Boulder and Beyond, 2021-2026

"Five years rooted in history, five years reaching toward freedom—this is the work, this is the cause." — Dr. Reiland Rabaka In this special anniversary episode of The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy, Dr. Reiland Rabaka reflects on the first five years of The Center for African and African American Studies/The CAAAS at the University of Colorado Boulder. What began as a vision has become a dynamic and evolving center grounded in research, artistic expression, and community engagement. This episode traces the origins of the center, from years of advocacy to its founding in 2021, shaped by broader movements for justice and collective action. It highlights the center's core pillars as a research hub, an arts space, and a home for building the Beloved Community. Through these efforts, The CAAAS has cultivated intellectual communities, supported creative work, and created pathways for students, artists, and community members to connect and collaborate. Featuring a powerful interview conducted by KGNU, the episode also explores the impact of a historic $2 million investment from university leadership. This commitment represents not only institutional support, but a shared belief in the center's mission to expand access, foster dialogue, and build bridges across communities. At its heart, this episode is about more than looking back. It is about looking forward. It asks what it means to build institutions that do more than exist, institutions that actively transform. It invites listeners to reflect on the role of Black Studies in shaping a more just and inclusive future, and on the responsibility we all share in that work. As Dr. Rabaka reminds us throughout the episode, the Beloved Community is not an abstract ideal. It is a daily practice rooted in inclusion, creativity, and collective care. See all show notes and articles on The CAAAS on our website [https://www.colorado.edu/center/caaas/podcast/episodes/episode-33-caaas-5-year-anniversary-episode-building-beloved-community-cu-boulder]

Ep 32: Black Studies at CU Boulder and Beyond: Honoring Dr. Charles Nilon and Mrs. Mildred Nilon

This special episode of The Cause brings listeners to a powerful moment of remembrance held on February 16, 2026, marking the installation of a Bench by the Road through the Toni Morrison Society in honor of Dr. Charles Nilon and Mrs. Mildred Nilon. More than a commemorative event, this gathering stands as a public act of memory, recognition, and responsibility. The bench, simple in form yet profound in meaning, invites reflection on the long and often unrecognized history of Black intellectual life at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Charles Nilon, the university's first Black professor, played a foundational role in establishing the Black Studies program in 1969, helping to carve out intellectual space where none previously existed. Mrs. Mildred Nilon, the university's first Black librarian, expanded access to knowledge and ensured that the archive could speak where it had too often been silent. Together, their work helped lay the foundation for what would become a thriving and evolving field of study grounded in truth, inclusion, and transformation. Featuring remarks from Chancellor Justin Schwartz and a powerful reflection from Dr. Reiland Rabaka, this episode moves from memory to movement, asking listeners not only to honor the past but to carry its lessons forward. It reminds us that Black Studies is not a static discipline, but a living practice rooted in struggle, shaped by community, and sustained through action. This episode also highlights the broader significance of the Bench by the Road Project, which creates spaces for public memory and acknowledges histories that have too often gone unmarked. See all show notes on our website [https://www.colorado.edu/center/caaas/podcast/episodes/episode-32-black-studies-cu-boulder-and-beyond-honoring-dr-charles-nilon-and-mrs]