Rocky Top Sunrise is a podcast where we talk about what it means to fight for climate justice and a Green New Deal in the South with Sunrise Movement. We explore how every issue intersects with climate and how a Green New Deal will help bring them all together. Our goal is to win the South – because if you win the South, you win the nation.

The Battle Against the Byhalia Pipeline

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Hale and Cassie are joined by Justin Pearson, one of the co-founders of the grassroots movement Memphis Community Against The Pipeline (MCAP). They dig into the movement’s fight against the Byhalia Connection Pipeline and the ongoing environmental injustices happening right now in Memphis, Tennessee.

Check out Memphis Community Against the Pipeline

Sign the petition to tell city council members to vote to protect Memphis’ drinking water on Tuesday

Volunteer with MCAP

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

 

Regrounding Ourselves in the Movement

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Hale, Isabella, Owen, and Cassie join forces for a regrounding episode where we talk about what we are doing as a Movement here in Tennessee and what the larger fight looks like within the context of the Biden Administration. We also preview our next episode which will be on the fight against the Byhalia Pipeline in Memphis. (+ some ridiculous outtakes on the big dumb boat and the Kentucky Creation Museum)

Check out Memphis Community Against the Pipeline to get a preview of what is going down before the next episode

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

The Intersectionality Between Climate and Reproductive Justice

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Hosts Isabella and Hale speak with Osub Ahmed, a senior analyst at the Center for American Progress, on the intersection between the climate crisis and reproductive rights. This is often an overlooked subject both in media and day-to-day conversations. That’s why we decided to dig deep and dissect the important relationship between the two.

Read the Environmental Reproductive Justice research

Check out In Your Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

Tennessean Insurrectionists and the Importance of Antifascism

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Journalists Abby Lee Hood and Matt Bastin join to talk about Tennesseans’ involvement in the undemocratic coup attempt by MAGA insurrectionists that took place at our Capitol last week. We explore the moment we are in and where to go from here, including how it is more important now than ever to include antifascism into everything we do. Not only is supporting antifascism the right thing to do, but we will never pass a Green New Deal or any other progressive legislation if we don’t both practice antifascism and push for democratic reforms.

Read Matt and Abby Lee’s piece in Tennessee Lookout that inspired this episode

Support Abby Lee

Support Matt

Read Angela Davis’ Abolition Democracy Beyond Empire Prisons & Torture

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Join DSA

Volunteer for The Equity Alliance

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

How the Left Can Change Tennessee

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Matthew Park, Co-Executive Director of Change TN, joins Cassie and Owen to talk about how the Left should be engaging with the upcoming race for the Chair of the Democratic Party and all the local races across the state in 2021. As Matthew says, local municipalities are the true labs of democracy – that’s where we need to be building the bench so that we can truly change Tennessee for the better.

Get involved with Change TN

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

As Georgia Goes, So Goes the South

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Erica Darragh, Communications Lead for Sunrise Atlanta, joins Hale and Cassie to talk about the upcoming Senate runoff elections in Georgia and how crucial they are to us winning a Green New Deal. There’s so much we can learn from the incredible organizing that led to Georgia’s turnaround, and it gives us a lot of hope for Tennessee and the rest of the South. Be sure to do whatever you can to support Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia with your time, money, or both. Let’s bring this home.

Volunteer for and donate to Reverend Raphael Warnock.

Volunteer for and donate to Jon Ossoff.

Support Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight.

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

Why The Way You Talk About Climate Change Matters

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Hosts Owen and Cassie talk about how to talk about climate change and why it matters. The media often frames human-caused climate change as a “belief” instead of asserting it as truth and attempts to provide balance to an issue in which only one side is based in fact. We cut through the bullshit and talk about how to frame climate change in ways that will actually bring solutions.

Find out what Native Land you are living on.

Phonebank for Marquita Bradshaw with us!

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

We Are Wide Awake

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Joining us on the pod today is Victoria Manning, the brains behind Sunrise Tennessee’s latest action against Senator Lamar Alexander where we got up at 4 in the morning to make noise outside of his house because of the injustice of him agreeing to participate in the Supreme Court nomination vote. We talk about the action and we also put it into the broader historical context of why direct actions are a crucial strategic tool for Sunrise and all mass movements to use to make meaningful change. We also dive into what the left should push for when it comes to the Supreme Court, and why electing people like Marquita Bradshaw to the Senate is so important to winning an equitable future.

Find out what Native Land you are living on.

Phonebank for Marquita Bradshaw with us!

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FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

Who Has The Power

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We’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety lately, so we decided to get real with y’all in this episode. Hosts Owen and Cassie talk about the fear we’ve been experiencing during this tumultuous time and how that anxiety relates to our overall political theory. We cover some tricky topics, but we hope you’ll hear the nuance of our worldview and understand that we are all in this fight together. There’s a lot to be anxious about but we still have so much hope for a better world. Please note that the views expressed in this episode are the views of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sunrise Movement or The Tennessee Holler.

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COVID19 and Why We Need Medicare for All to Solve Climate Change

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Hosts Hale Masaki and Isabella Killius dive into the intersections between COVID19, climate change, and Medicare for All with Stephanie Kang, a good friend of Sunrise Tennessee, Nashville Native, and health policy adviser to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. Congresswoman Jayapal is the lead sponsor of Medicare for All in the House of Representatives.

Email MidTN DSA’s M4A Working Group at [email protected] to join the fight for Medicare for All here in Tennessee.

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Sunrise Tennessee Interest Form

Follow Sunrise Tennessee on Twitter and Facebook.