The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy

"The Black folk song, the rhythmic cry of the slave, stands today not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas."  - W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

What can a song teach us about freedom? What can a melody reveal about memory, resilience, and the long struggle for human dignity? In this episode of The Cause: Conve...

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
— Frederick Douglass

Juneteenth is not merely a holiday. It is not merely a date on a calendar, a festival, a parade, or a cookout. Juneteenth is a historical mirror. It asks us to look honestly at Amer...

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 dign...

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 di...

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...

"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 beg...

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 ...

In this episode of The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores the feminist art movement as a vital site of resistance, cultural production, and social transformation. Moving across historical moments and artistic traditions, this conversation examines how feminist artists have challenged exclusion, disrupted dominant narratives, and redefined the boundaries of representation.

Grounded in ...

What is Women's Liberation? It is more than a slogan, more than a season, more than a symbolic seat at a table built by patriarchy. Women's liberation is the radical reimagining of the world itself. It is the audacious assertion that women are not property, not afterthought, not footnotes to male ambition, but full human beings endowed with intellect, imagination, agency, and authority.

In this essential episode, Dr. Reiland Rabaka...

What is Afrofuturism, and why does it matter now? In this episode, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores Afrofuturism as more than a cultural trend. It is a philosophy of freedom, a political imagination, and a practice of worldmaking rooted in the Black Freedom Struggle. It is what happens when Black artists, thinkers, and communities refuse the lie that the f...

"If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated."
— Dr. Carter G. Woodson

In 2026, we mark 100 years of Black History Month. One hundred years of intentional remembering, rigorous study, and collective struggle around Black life and Black humanity. One hundred years of insistin...

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

"The danger of the 'I Have a Dream' speech is not that it is remembered, but that it is remembered incorrectly. It is misremembered. The danger is nostalgia without commitment, reverence without responsibility. Dr. King's dream was not meant to be admired. It was meant to be enacted." - Dr. Reiland Rabaka

In this concluding episode of o...

"The Beloved Community is not a place we arrive at, but a practice we embody in relationship with one another." - Dr. Reiland Rabaka

In this first part of our January series, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores the meaning, origins, and practical demands of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for the Beloved Community. Far from an abstract ideal, the Beloved Community represents a way of being and acting in the w...

"Kwanzaa tells us we are the harvest our ancestors dreamed of and the seeds of new worlds not yet born." - Dr. Reiland Rabaka

In this powerful and timely episode of The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy, Dr. Reiland Rabaka offers a deeply rooted meditation on Kwanzaa as a cultural practice, a philosophical framework, and a living tradition born from the Black Freedom Movement. Mor...

In The Women's Suffrage Movement, Dr. Rabaka lifts up the intertwined histories of women's rights, abolitionism, racial justice, and democratic reform. This episode serves as a companion to Episode 23, The Abolitionist Movement, deepening our understanding of how these movements shaped one another.

The episode examines the evolution of suffrage organizing, the contributions of Black women's clubs, the roles of Indigenous, Lati...

"The abolitionists were the first to teach us that freedom must be shared, that justice must be collective, and that allyship is not performance but participation." - Dr. Reiland Rabaka

Episode 23 of The Cause Podcast takes listeners deep into the heart of The Abolitionist Movement, exploring how the fight to end slavery laid the foundation for modern anti-racism, civil rights, and contempora...

In this powerful conversation, Dr. Reiland Rabaka is joined by DaWon Baker, CU Boulder's Associate Athletic Director for Impact & Strategic Engagement, along with three CU Boulder students and student-athletes who recently attended the 2025 Black Student Athlete Summit in Chica...

In this episode of The Cause Podcast, Dr. Reiland Rabaka speaks with State Representative Junie Joseph, a dynamic legislator representing Colorado's District 10. Born in Haiti and now serving in the Colorado General Assembly, Representative Joseph shares her remarkable journey of resilience, civic engagement, and community-centered leadership.

The discussion explores themes of representation, equity, and belongi...

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

"The Global South is not just geography—it's a shared story of survival, solidarity, and hope." - Dr. Reiland Rabaka

In this powerful episode of The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores The Global South—not just as a place, but as a living, breathing movement for liberat...