This special episode of The Cause brings listeners to a powerful moment of remembrance held on February 16, 2026, marking the installation of a Bench by the Road through the Toni Morrison Society in honor of Dr. Charles Nilon and Mrs. Mildred Nilon.

More than a commemorative event, this gathering stands as a public act of memory, recognition, and responsibility. The bench, simple in form yet profound in meaning, invites reflection on the long and often unrecognized history of Black intellectual life at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Dr. Charles Nilon, the university's first Black professor, played a foundational role in establishing the Black Studies program in 1969, helping to carve out intellectual space where none previously existed. Mrs. Mildred Nilon, the university's first Black librarian, expanded access to knowledge and ensured that the archive could speak where it had too often been silent. Together, their work helped lay the foundation for what would become a thriving and evolving field of study grounded in truth, inclusion, and transformation.

Featuring remarks from Chancellor Justin Schwartz and a powerful reflection from Dr. Reiland Rabaka, this episode moves from memory to movement, asking listeners not only to honor the past but to carry its lessons forward. It reminds us that Black Studies is not a static discipline, but a living practice rooted in struggle, shaped by community, and sustained through action.

This episode also highlights the broader significance of the Bench by the Road Project, which creates spaces for public memory and acknowledges histories that have too often gone unmarked.

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In this episode of The Cause: Conversations on Music, History, and Democracy, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores the feminist art movement as a vital site of resistance, cultural production, and social transformation. Moving across historical moments and artistic traditions, this conversation examines how feminist artists have challenged exclusion, disrupted dominant narratives, and redefined the boundaries of representation.

Grounded in Black feminist thought and broader feminist traditions, the episode highlights how art becomes a powerful medium for confronting systems of power while creating new possibilities for visibility, voice, and agency. Dr. Rabaka situates the feminist art movement within ongoing struggles for justice, asking listeners to consider how creative expression not only reflects society but actively participates in reshaping it.

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What is Women's Liberation? It is more than a slogan, more than a season, more than a symbolic seat at a table built by patriarchy. Women's liberation is the radical reimagining of the world itself. It is the audacious assertion that women are not property, not afterthought, not footnotes to male ambition, but full human beings endowed with intellect, imagination, agency, and authority.

In this essential episode, Dr. Reiland Rabaka explores the history, philosophy, and ongoing legacy of the Women's Liberation Movement. The episode traces how the movement redefined freedom, not only in law and policy but in homes, workplaces, classrooms, and cultural life. What did it mean to declare that "the personal is political"? How did second-wave feminism expand earlier women's rights struggles? And why did many non-White women challenge mainstream feminism for failing to address the intertwined realities of race, class, and sexuality?

The Women's Liberation Movement emerged in the late 1960s as a radical wing of second-wave feminism. While earlier movements centered on securing the vote, the Women's Liberation Movement insisted that oppression did not end at the ballot. It lived in the workplace, in the home, in the bedroom, and in culture where women were objectified and infantilized.

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