For This special Season of the GoGreen 2026 Podcast. I want to use this platform s to put the spotlight on Green Candidates running down ballot, and showing up in their communities everyday.

We are going to start with Eddie Espinoza, a Green Party Candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner. I talked to Eddie as part of the Green Party of the United States convention focused on down ballot candidates and I knew I needed to bring him on the show.

Eddie is a US Army combat veteran, a retired Texas Public School Teacher, with 26 years of service, an advocate for young people, and a climate activist in his community.

He is the only candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner calling for fossil fuel corporations and oil and gas workers to transition away from extraction, transport, and burning of fossil fuels.

Website: www.espinoza4tx.com

Social media: X/Twitter: @Espinoza4TX

Facebook.com: Espinoza4TX Instagram/TikTok/Snapchat: @Espinoza4tx

Baltimore is a big port city with a strong industrial history. It is also a city with a history of racism and exploitation. Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among The highest in the nation and residents have significantly lower life spans than other parts of the city and the state.

But where there is domination, exploitation, and environmental racism there are movements of resistance, regeneration, and environmental Justice. In South Baltimore a coalition of students and community leaders have stood up not only to fight injustice but also to build a new world.

Today’s guest Dr Nicole Fabricant, chronicled this Struggle in the book Fighting To Breathe: Race Toxicity and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore Dr Fabricant is also a co founder of south Baltimore community land trust She has been organizing with Free Your Voice youth in Curtis Bay for 13 years and she is Professor of Anthropology at Towson University and director of Latin American Studies.

Towson University where Dr Fabricant teaches , is near and dear to me, It is a public college just North of Baltimore City and it is were i did my undergraduate work, and were I coached debate in the mid 2000’s

Today we are going to discuss the book and the struggle in south Baltimore, how that connects to organizing on campus, and the lessons it provides us for broader organizing for grassroots democracy in Baltimore and Beyond.

With that I am excited to bring on Dr Nicole Fabricant for this conversation

Baltimore Beat Op-Ed about Incineration in the General Assembly https://baltimorebeat.com/op-ed-maryland-democrats-and-the-pretense-of-environmental-justice/

Fighting To Breathe Web Site

https://www.fightingtobreathe.us/

Chemical Sensitivity Podcast About Fighting To Breathe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWrwmyczqpQ

Fighting To Breathe Discussion at Red Emma’s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeoNPGhAva4

South Baltimore Community Land Trust

https://www.sbclt.org/

Baltimore Brew Story- Lawsuit About Incinerator

https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2024/05/29/south-baltimore-residents-file-complaint-against-city-saying-bresco-pollution-threatens-their-civil-rights/

Today’s Show is with Dr Jared Ball he is a Professor of Communication and Africana Studies at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. and author of The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power he is also host of the podcast “iMiXWHATiLiKE!”, he can be found @imixwhatilike on most social media, and his decades of emancipatory journalism, media, writing, and political work can be found at imixwhatilike.org.

If this podcast is about people whose ideas and work influence me and my Campaign, Dr Jared Ball has to be involved. His Academic and Political work is foundational to the work of this campaign. He ran a Green Party campaign for President that informs a lot of why I think the Green Party needs to be a healthy part of multiparty democracy, or as Rosa Clemente put it “The Green Party isn’t the alternative. It’s the imperative.”

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Beyond that he has created and shared political and advocacy space with at least 5 guests we have interviewed in this season. From in-depth interviews with Nnamdi Lumumba about the role of Independent Black Workers Parties, to frequent thoughtful exchanges with Lawrence Grandpre and Dayvon Love of Leaders a Beautiful Struggle, to discussions of Campus Labor organizing with Andrew Eneim and a regular show with Renee Johnston Dr Ball’s work is connected and constructive of the politics this campaign is working to build.

Besides that, he works at Morgan State University, which is right here in our amazing part of Northeast Baltimore!

Book Discussion With Lawrence Grandpre and Dayvon Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMObmAbNBSU

Hip-Hop and the Green Party: Jared Ball and Rosa Clemente Were Right by Shamako Noblehttps://imixwhatilike.org/2012/10/04/hip-hop-and-the-green-party-jared-ball-and-rosa-clemente-were-right-by-shamako-noble/

Saturdays With Renee

https://www.youtube.com/live/7OmySI8mcN0?si=DuoFQTbUIDSR70_S

ImixwhatIlike.org

https://imixwhatilike.org/

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/@BlackPowerMedia

The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power

https://imixwhatilike.org/2023/05/19/mobp/

I am very excited to Welcome Dr. Jared Ball of Morgan State University!

Education is a top priority issue in Maryland. In 2021 The General Assembly passed the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, which increased education funding by 3.8 Billion dollars annually for 10 years. The primary focus of the Blueprint is on early childhood, primary, and secondary school and This investment signals Maryland’s commitment to having a high value public educational system.

One of the pillars of the blueprint is a focus on college and career readiness. This means a big part of the Blue print is to prepare students for Higher education.

Maryland’s higher education system include community colleges, public 4 year schools, HBCUs, and private four year schools. These institutions are also a major focus of policy and budget deliberations. We have spent some time already discussing schools like Johns Hopkins, but today we are going to focus on community colleges.

Owen Silverman Andrews is an instructional specialist of English language learning at a Maryland community college and a doctorate of education student at UVA, focusing on multilingual English learners' agentic transitions between/within secondary and higher ed institutions. Owen served for two terms as co-chair of the Baltimore City Green Party (2018-21) and lives in Lakeside, Baltimore.

We will cover a range of topics related to community colleges, higher education, and multilingual educational institutions in Maryland. I am excited to get into this with Owen.

Article About Higher Ed Funding

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/no-more-blank-checks-for-marylands-private-colleges-and-universities-e60f472313c7

Article About Community College Funding

https://osilvermana.medium.com/fight-for-full-fair-funding-for-md-community-colleges-068358fbae69.

Article about labeling schools vs students

https://www.languagemagazine.com/2024/04/04/deconstructing-english-learner-labels-constructing-multilingual-schools/

In an extractive capitalist economy designed to create economic inequality and political polarization, debt, credit, and capital play a key role in making the system function. Banks are the institutions responsible for regulating that function. Those with power and money have tried and succeeded in a vision of banks as private businesses,

But, there will always be resistance to such efforts and there is a long history of reform efforts which have sought to make banks serve the public good instead of private profit.

Public banks, broadly defined as banks controlled by government and not corporations, have long been an idea advocated by populists, economic justice advocates, and socialist and progressive political parties.

Here in Maryland we have seen legislation introduced to study public banking and it is a part of our campaign’s agenda for a solidarity economy.

Yet, despite all of the economic justice that public banking offers, it has been hard for the reforms to gain traction and perhaps even harder for the few examples we do have to deliver on the promise of economic justice.

Today’s guest is the perfect person to talk to about this issue.

Matt Stannard is a longtime organizer, writer, researcher, podcast producer and advocate for democratic socialist policies and material justice. Matt has been co-chair of Southeast Wyoming Democratic Socialists of America, as well as the policy director of Commonomics USA and the media director at the Public Banking Institute. You can read his writings at Occupy, Truthout, Common Dreams, Yes! Magazine, and other publications, including his blog, Cowboys on the Commons. His podcasts have included Shared Sacrifice and Solidarity House Cooperative. He lives on the coast of Oregon

Matts Series of Articles in Occupy

https://cowboysonthecommons.org/2021/12/28/links-to-matts-public-banking-series-at-occupy-com/

Matts Reflection on the struggles with Public Banking

https://cowboysonthecommons.org/2019/01/07/public-banking-state-capitalism-and-the-collapsing-bridge/

Ellis 2026 Agenda for a solidarity economy

https://www.gogreen2026.com/solidarity-econ

One of the main themes of this campaign is that the two party system is insufficient to represent the diversity of political perspectives that exist in Maryland. Thus our work is to grow the movement for multiparty democracy at the state and local level.

One of the main themes of this podcast is to talk to the people whose ideas, scholarship and advocacy influence and inspire my campaign.

This episode is a great convergence of those two themes. Jack Santucci is a political scientist, educator, and author of More Parties or No Parties: The Politics of Electoral Reform in America(Oxford UP, 2022). His research centers on electoral systems and voting behavior in the United States.

In this show we will cover the history of electoral reforms and the push and pull between party based reforms and anti-party reforms.

Then we will talk about the imitations possibilities and limits of some different electoral systems that could replace the current one

Democracy Works Podcast

https://www.democracyworkspodcast.com/santucci/

Democracy Journal Avoiding the PR Mistakes of the Past

https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/70/avoiding-the-pr-mistakes-of-the-past/

More Parties or No Parties: The Politics of Electoral Reform in America

https://academic.oup.com/book/43846?login=false

Toward a Different Kind of Party Government: Proportional Representation for Federal Elections

https://www.jacksantucci.com/docs/papers/santucci-shugart-latner_2023_apsa-pd-parties-report.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRvbU7tT_bA

2022 Maryland General Assembly Results By Party and District

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l_wEU2BddiLHF8UscHu4xIlXL8B2ambd-sZc5DV1vvY/edit?usp=sharing

Tonight’s guest Davarian L. Baldwin is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and public advocate. He currently serves as the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and founding director of Smart Cities Research Lab at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. His academic and political commitments have focused on global cities and particularly the diverse and marginalized communities that struggle to maintain sustainable lives in urban locales.

Baldwin is the award-winning author of several books, most recently, In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (2021) and served as the consultant and text author for The World of the Harlem Renaissance: A Jigsaw Puzzle (2022). His commentaries and opinions have been featured in numerous outlets from NBC News, BBC, and PBS to USA Today, the Washington Post, and TIME magazine. Baldwin was a featured guest on the HULU series, The Conversations Project and in 2022 he was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation for his work.

On tonight’s show we talked about the extractive relationship Universities have with the communities they are in. We started by exploring the history of political and economic forces at play that led these institutions to the place of dominance they are in now. Then we explored an interconnected network of movements that are rising up in confrontations with universities to demand they contribute their fair share.

Then we explored what an abolition university looks like and the policy and organizing steps we can take to get there.

Resources

Upenn Talk Mentioned in the Show Davarian L. Baldwin | 2023 Gordon S. Bodek Lecture | Penn Urban Studies

May 1st event at UB

https://umbc.edu/event/humanities-forum-with-davarian-l-baldwin/

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/davarian-l-baldwin/in-the-shadow-of-the-ivory-tower/9781568588919/

Article from Non-Profit Quarterly

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/educational-purposes-nonprofit-land-as-a-vital-site-of-struggle/

Davarian Baldwin on X

https://twitter.com/DavarianBaldwin

Ashley "Ash" Esposito, a working mom, artist, and advocate for educational equity and social justice, was elected to the Board of School Commissioners for Baltimore City Public Schools in 2022.. Ash is deeply committed to addressing systemic issues affecting marginalized communities and is passionate about community engagement, ethical data usage, grassroots democracy, voting rights, and inclusive campaigning in politics.

On this show Ash and I discuss how she approached her campaign for school board, why she didn’t follow the conventional wisdom about who to talk to, and what it was like to run for and win a position that never existed before.

Then we talked about the Student Members of the Board, why giving young people power changes everything, and what this means for movements and organizing.

Finally Ash gave us three great book recommendations, links are below!

Local Progress School Board Statement of Values

https://localprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/School-Board-Cohort-Statement-of-Values-2024.pdf

Ashley’s Website

https://ashleyesposito.com/

Resmaa Menakem’s Website (Author of My Grandmother’s Hands)

https://resmaa.com/

Professional Troublemaker

https://luvvie.org/books/professional-troublemaker/

Unbossed and Unbought

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/unbought-and-unbossed-shirley-chisholm?variant=40152567545890