Sovereign: Reclaiming Black Land
In this series, rich in storytelling, history, and ritual, we explore what it means to be sovereign. With Black land at the center, this podcast brings together prominent activists, artists, and weavers with the rising generation of Black land stewards for inspiring conversations that honor the past and create blueprints for the future.
This monthly offering, exploring Black sovereignty, Afro Futurism, and land reverence, will be shared as a live conversation on Instagram, with the audio shared as a podcast.
Hosted by Crysta Bloom and Clara AgborTabi
Sovereign – Season 2
Sovereign Episode #1: Returning
This season, we keep asking: What does it truly mean to be sovereign? Not just in theory — but in land, lineage, labor, and love.
This episode is a compilation of voices from Season One — a mosaic of visions imagining Afrofuturist communities thriving in creativity, spiritual practice, and sacred care for the Earth.
We asked each guest to paint a picture of the next world, and now we return to those visions — and listening, you’ll notice new connections, the spark of ideas taking root, and a sense that the future is something we can shape together.
Sovereign – Season 1
Sovereign Episode #1: Invisible Ties
We explore the longing, grief, and depth of connection felt between the global majority and the ancestral lands we’ve been separated from, and the personal ways we’ve reclaimed, preserved, and deepened our connection to our homelands with Junauda Petrus and Ysanet Batista
Sovereign Episode #2: “ASAASE YAA”
We explore stewarding land with indigenous wisdom in the modern day, merging ancient ancestral practices with emerging technologies with Joshua Kwaku Asiedu and Bailey Hutchison
Sovereign Episode #3: Florida Water
We discuss role of imagination in the movement toward land sovereignty and liberation with adrienne maree brown and Ayo Ngozi
Sovereign Episode #4: Wild Currents
We explore Leah and Patrisse’s personal journeys to living in closer relationship with the Earth, their spiritual practices and how that supports their connection with the land.
Sovereign Episode #5: Neighborhood Healer
We explore cosmic aligned herbalism with Karen Rose and Yura Sapi. On this episode, we’re diving deeply into the ways that cosmic patterns inform our relationship to medicine making, bridging heaven and earth. As well as the ways that our medicine making practices can be rooted in liberation for our communities and sustainability for the land.
Sovereign Episode #6: Devoted Creatorship
Naima Penniman and Olka Baldeh invite us into a rich exploration of the universal languages that connect us all. On this episode, we center the essential roles of storytellers, creators, and cultural weavers—those who thread vision into form—as we journey toward land sovereignty and collective liberation. Together, we’ll muse on art as sacred strategy: a vital force that not only stirs the soul, but propels our movements forward—calling us into greater devotion, expansive dreaming, and purposeful action.
Sovereign Episode #7: Wahala
With the help of Bertram Williams and Farmer D, we root into questions of land, healing, and accountability. We explore how misogynoir shows up in our movement spaces, and how Black men are reimagining their relationships to land, to self, and to each other. Through reflection, care, and vision, we ask: what does it mean to build liberated futures without carrying harm into the soil?
Sovereign Episode #8: Sacred Stories
Richie Reseda and LeAnne Morrissette reflect on the importance of creating liberatory art and media rooted in oral histories. We explore how to honor our experiences through storytelling that is honest, ethical, and complete in the pursuit of collective liberation.
Sovereign Episode #9: Little Seeds
Vivien Sansour and Hana’ Maaiah bring focus to ecocide in Palestine and across the African continent, and help us explore seed saving as a path forward — a sacred act of preserving history and culture in the face of ongoing dispossession. We know that colonization and occupation are not only political but ecological systems — from deforestation and monocropping to water theft and soil depletion. We share this episode as a seed of hope – nurturing the possibility of repair, return, and regeneration.
Sovereign ListenerJust listened to the most recent episode of SOVEREIGN (my fav podcast) and I wanted to send you some love that has been marinating~
These delicate & intentional questions – acting as excavation – digging below the surface to reveal the underbelly of our being! So much depth and care exists in this container. So much richness emerges from your intentionality, wisdom, curation and presence. People are able to show up and be tender, imaginative, and share their visions. What a gift you’ve given us!
SOVEREIGN is a balm for our souls – a hawthorne tincture strengthening our hearts, a mirror for our comrades, a portal to our wildest dreams.
There is nothing I want to do more than put my hands in the dirt, hug a Black person, kiss the earth, and then bring my strengths to the revolution after your podcast.