Today we are pleased to bring “The Best of 2020”, the episode that was listened to the most, viewed the most on our website, and voted for by you, our listeners.
The Best of 2020 is an episode born, like most of the year, within trauma, pain and grief. And as I listen to this interview again, I can hear the pain in my voice as I introduce our speaker, Fr. Joseph Brown. Even my voice cracks at one point. It took me several tries to record the introduction for the episode that day, as I was overcome with emotion sadness. But this episode isn’t about me. It’s about the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Brianna Taylor, and George Floyd, just to name a very few. Since this interview has been released, more Black lives have been killed in the United States in a pandemic that surged through this country well before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fr. Joseph Brown, Plenum Address speaker at the 2020 National Convention, sat with our listeners and Fr. Brown begins the conversation by reflecting on the uprising across the country- and the world- to support the Black community and take action towards anti-racist policies and true social change. And today, serendipitously on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as we replay this episode, we are still listening, and we are still learning.
In order to respect the episode at hand, I will not be editing any of my original introduction and closing remarks. Thank you to those who listened and voted for this interview, and I’ll see you back here next Monday.
SHOW NOTES
As a musical accompaniment to this episode, Fr. Brown encourages you to listen to “I’ve Been in the Storm Too Long”. It can be found on YouTube here.
Fr. Brown has several follow-up articles we encourage you to read.
Carbondale leaders reflect on George Floyd killing in Minneapolis (an interview with Fr. Brown)
Black America: I am Tired – by Joseph A. Brown (National Catholic Register)
My Arms are Empty: A Song of Lamentation – by Joseph A. Brown
We also encourage you to listen to Sister Thea Bowman’s speech to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1989.
The transcript can be found here.
BIO: Fr. Joseph A. Brown
Joseph A. Brown, S. J., Ph.D. a native of East St. Louis, Illinois, is a Catholic priest with an extensive academic and pastoral career. When he graduated from St. Louis University with the BA in Philosophy, he attended Johns Hopkins University, where he gained a Master's Degree in Creative Writing. After his ordination to the priesthood (1972) he taught Theater and Poetry at Creighton University for several years (eventually becoming artist-in-residence in 1978). Later, after receiving both the Master's degree in Afro-American Studies and the Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University, Fr. Brown taught at the University of Virginia and at Xavier University in New Orleans.
Presently he is a Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
In the Fall of 2009, he was the holder of the MacLean Chair of Jesuit Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. During his fall semester residency, he was a member of the SJU Department of English. Beginning in 2014, Joseph A. Brown, SJ; Ph. D., became the founding Chair of the 1917 Centennial Commission & Cultural Initiative, Inc. The Commission which coordinates activities commemorating the 1917 East St. Louis Race Riots, bringing to light the circumstances and aftermath of the bloody pogrom which was one of the most significant examples of domestic terrorism in U. S. history. He is the author of “The Sankofa Muse.”
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