Episodes

L. Joy is back at the front of the class to continue to her discussion on narrative. She’s exploring the political power of narrative and how the stories we tell about history, government, and ourselves shape our understanding of democracy and our willingness to participate in it. After she breaks things down at the whiteboard, she brings Dr. Karen L. Cox to the front of the class for the broader conversation.

It’s time to get vote ready. But once you get to your polling place and get your ballot, how do you decide you will cast your vote for? L. Joy is getting us prepared to vote by getting us to think through not just where and when to vote but being educated on the power of each office as well as the people running for those positions. For this conversation, she brings Judson Scanlon and Dr. Chris Jones to the front of the class.

At the top of every #SundayCivics class, L. Joy states “Civics just doesn't begin and end on Election Day,” yet, there are still folks that treat voting as the beginning and the end of democracy. This episode she helps us gain clarity on what our vote actually does and brings Rashad Robinson back to the front of the class.

Back in the Office of the Citizen, L. Joy has one last lesson for us. Today she is discussing civic philanthropy. Philanthropy, L. Joy stresses, does not belong to only wealthy individuals, large foundations, and corporations. It also is more than just charitable giving. What is it? A system that determines who receives resources, whose ideas get funded, and what community projects get to grow. To break down how philanthropy is a civic action, L. Joy brings Margarethe Laurenzi and Dwane Ashley t...

Back in the Office of the Citizen, L. Joy brings us a lesson that examines the powerful connection between narrative, education, community, and civic power. She opens with a reflection on history, and argues that political power is shaped not only through elections, demonstrations, and public policy, but also through the stories a society chooses to teach about itself. To bring additional context to the conversation, L. Joy brings Dr. Shango Blake to the front of the class.

L. Joy opens this lesson from the Office of the Citizen with a question she posed to her social media community: Do you consider yourself middle class? Although her respective timelines were hilarious with their responses, the humor revealed that for many folks who have degrees, careers, businesses, and what was once considered high income are no longer financially secure. For this conversation about the middle class, L. Joy brings professor and author A. Mechele Dickerson to the front of the cl...

L. Joy has a question for us, “what line has to be crossed before you believe action from citizens is required?” With everything from journalists being arrested, people being rounded up daily and imprisoned, civil rights violations, many things becoming unaffordable and unsafe daily, to unlawful federal actions happening in real time, nothing is normal. She reminds us that democracy cannot be preserved by waiting for the next election alone bringing this lesson to life through the frame of a key...

L. Joy is back and she has another lesson for us, the occupants of the Office of the Citizen, that is timely and important. Today’s topic: the responsibilities of the people at a time of war/global conflict and how Black political thought has long challenged people to understand freedom as a global struggle. Weaving together everything from Hip-hop culture, to Dubois, PanAfricanism, to Malcom X’s international human rights agenda, and Constitutional powers, L. Joy proves that citizens are not po...

L. Joy is back in the Office of the Citizen and for this lesson for our next lesson. She is focusing on how propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation work as tools of political control, and how a high-speed, low-literacy information ecosystem can keep people reacting instead of organizing. To get deep into this lesson, she brings Dr. Michelle Taylor back to the front of the class.

This episode of #SundayCivics, L. Joy preps us with the syllabus for the next semester on The Office of the Citizen. In this political moment when the floor is shifting beneath our feet, we shouldn’t react in panic but with clarity. Clarity about who we are and what democracy actually asks of us as citizens, because the highest office in a democracy is The Office of the Citizen. Over the next weeks, we will learn to break down systems together so we can rewrite the rules and reclaim the office a...

L. Joy is back on the stoop for the last of the Porch Light series with reflection and a clear invitation to move into 2026 with intention. She reiterates the lessons from the porch and references Kwanzaa’s third principle, Ujima (collective work and responsibility), she asks us to pause before the new year and ask ourselves: What did we learn? What did we survive? What are we carrying forward? Then L. Joy brings Emma Bloomberg, founder and CEO of Murmuration to the front of the class.

L. Joy is back on the the porch solo to have a deeply personal, faith-rooted conversation with us about what real change demands of us. Not in theory, but in practice. She draws from the Black faith tradition and the wisdom of movement ancestors like Septima Clark, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph, to reframe democracy not as a belief system or a moment, but as a daily practice. L. Joy points out that many of us love the idea of transformation, the language of justice, freedom, ...

L. Joy is back on the porch thinking about the constant political chaos with court rulings dropping daily, government shutdown threats, manipulated maps, and state legislatures advancing restrictive laws. She reminds us that the chaos is designed, not inevitable. With thirty-six governors, forty-six state legislatures, and countless local offices on the ballot in the 2026 midterms, and we have to power to design a better future for us all by engaging with who writes the rules around how we vote....

L. Joy opens this episode on the porch by unpacking the difference between charity, philanthropy, and government responsibility. She explains that charity is personal and immediate, philanthropy is institutional where a small group decides which problems matter and governs without public accountability, and government, she reminds us, is supposed to be us: the collective decision-making that uses our tax dollars to guarantee basics like food, housing, healthcare, and dignity. Teresa Younger, pre...

In this powerful episode of Sunday Civics, L. Joy continues the Porchlight Series with a deep exploration of community space as a foundation of democracy. She reminds us that democracy is not confined to laws, elections, or constitutional text. It lives in the places where people convene: kitchen tables, barbershops, church basements, protest sites, community centers, bookstores, coffee shops, libraries, and porches. These everyday places, physical, emotional, and spiritual are the engines of de...

In this Porch Light series episode, L. Joy invites us to continue to imagine what it means to not fight back, but to fight forward and to remake an economy that actually serves the people who make it run. The economy is not the weather, it is not a natural phenomenon we must simply survive. It was built by people making choices and writing rules that concentrated wealth, extracted from Black communities, and normalized disinvestment. L. Joy reminds us that the legacy of redlining, predatory capi...

L. Joy is back under the glow of the porch light as she continues reimagining democracy in this series. This time she is focusing our attention on the economy. She cites Rev. James Lawson’s description of the economic system as “plantation capitalism,” giving us a lesson that takes us from the seizure of Indigenous land to chattel slavery, to Jim Crow, and the present-day economic order that continues to treat human beings as units of labor for profit instead of people with dignity. She then bri...

L. Joy is back on the porch and she invites us to imagine and build a freer, bolder democracy now, not decades from now. She walks us through the timeline from the Reconstruction era’s first Black-led institutions to today’s fights over gerrymandering, voter suppression, and district maps designed to mute Black electoral strength. Focusing on the South, where where more than half of Black Americans live and where political power is both concentrated and contested, L. Joy brings Brandon Upson to ...

The Porch Light Series continues. L. Joy discusses this time as a season of reflection, study, and recommitment to civic work. She shares one of her rituals of renewal: spending a few quiet days in the Library of Congress putting hands on primary sources left behind by activists who built power through hostile times. L. Joy explains that learning from the past is not optional, it’s part of how every generation builds power when government becomes an obstacle or an enemy. From Reconstruction to J...

For The Porch Light series, L. Joy invites listeners to “leave the light on for democracy, for justice, and for each other.” She opens this episode by asking a personal and political question - ”what grounds you?” She frames “grounding” as both a spiritual practice and a civic discipline: faith that lives in public, leadership rooted in integrity - not optics, and community spaces that heal, belong, and organize. She is joined at the front of the class by Dr. Cassandra Gould to discuss faith in ...

In this episode our civics teacher and neighborhood political strategist L. Joy debuts a brand-new series: The Porch Light. Drawing inspiration from the simple yet powerful tradition of leaving a light on for loved ones, L. Joy frames democracy itself as a light—something that offers guidance, protection, and hope in uncertain times. This episode lays out the foundation for the Porch Light series, a syllabus that will run through the end of the year. She takes listeners on a journey through hist...

This episode of Sunday Civics, L. Joy gives a preamble on the history of immigration. Then she sits down again with immigration attorney Alan Orr to cut through the myths, scapegoating, and fear-mongering driving today’s immigration debates. Together, they unpack how U.S. deportation policies recycle an old playbook: create a villain, distract the public, and funnel public dollars to private profit. From Reconstruction to today’s asylum crises, the tactic hasn’t changed—just the faces. L. Joy an...

Every week brings a new headline from the administration — this time, about tariffs. The International Trade Court just struck down the president’s latest round, ruling he overstepped his authority. The Constitution is clear: Congress, not the president, has the power to impose tariffs under Article I, Section 8. To dig deeper into what tariffs are and what they do, L. Joy brings professor Ryan Monarch to the front of the class. L. Joy and Ryan Monarch discuss how tariffs are taxes on imported g...

L. Joy opens class with reflections on Brooklyn’s Dance Africa festival and the importance of taking a break, before turning to the central theme: the role—and limits—of the courts in advancing justice. She notes how people increasingly view the judiciary as the ultimate arbiter of the nation’s values, citing recent Supreme Court decisions and public reactions. However, L. Joy cautions that courts have historically upheld the status quo, especially for Black and marginalized communities, referen...