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Sprouts
Sprouts Radio from the Grassroots is a 30-minute weekly program featuring radio programs produced at community radio stations or by other independent producers from across the country and sometimes around the world.
This radio documentary weaves together the voices of: Susan Burton, founder and director of A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project in Los Angeles, a residential program for women returning home from prisons and jails, offering shelter, safety, leadership, and support to those seeking to rebuild their lives; Michelle Alexander, acclaimed author of The New Jim Crow, the best-selling study of the U.S. system of mass incarceration. Alexander points to Susan Burton’s reentry program as a model for the kind of bold initiative needed to build what she calls a “new underground railroad” — a network of families, faith communities, and organizations dedicated to providing desperately needed support and love to people at risk of incarceration, families with loved ones behind bars, and people returning home from prison; and also included are the voices of five residents of A New Way of Life.
This show seamlessly incorporates plaintive music and insightful narration, and shows the human face of those our society stigmatizes as “criminals,” “felons,” and “offenders,” shedding light on the tremendous hurdles they face upon release from prison, including the most basic and fundamental tasks of securing housing, work, and sobriety. It features interviews and ambient audio recorded on site at A New Way of Life Reentry Project, and ties the emergence of the “new underground railroad” to the overarching movement to end mass incarceration.
Credits:
Produced by Chris Moore-Backman, KZFR Community Radio, Chico, California.
Music: “Blackout” and “The Moment I Need You” by Stray Theories, written and recorded by Micah Templeton-Wolfe; “Calm Down” by Loney Dear.
