The Shift: Stories of Resistance + Resilience
The Shift: Stories of Resistance + Resilience
Podcast Description
The Shift began as a LinkedIn Live Audio Series in 2023. In 2025, after the 2024 election results, Mark Travis Rivera decided to refocus the series on the themes of resistance + resilience and to use the series as an opportunity to harness the power of stories to help us recognize our shared humanity. Mark Travis Rivera is the CEO + Founder of The Professional Storyteller, LLC, and serves as the host and producer of The Shift.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The series focuses on topics such as activism, community building, intersectionality, and the dynamics of power and economics. Episodes often explore significant issues affecting marginalized groups, for example, discussions on the role of Black women in democracy and the need for collective identity among communities.
The Shift is a podcast series exploring stories of resistance and resilience from activists, creatives, and leaders across industries who are boldly challenging the status quo. Through honest conversations and powerful storytelling, we uncover how people shift systems, narratives, and culture to create a more inclusive, just, and liberated world. If you believe in the power of stories to spark change, this is the podcast for you. It is hosted and produced by Mark Travis Rivera, CEO + Founder of The Professional Storyteller, LLC.
Mark met Amena Brown through Creative Mornings ATL, the community she led as chapter host for five years. From the moment they connected, it was, in her words, a handshake emoji. This conversation catches Amena in the middle of her book tour for her new release, Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl, days before heading to Essence Fest. But she made time. Because that's what real community looks like.
What follows is a wide-ranging, warm, and often deeply funny conversation about ancestral resilience, containing multitudes, the complexity of interracial marriage in this political moment, what it costs to refuse to shrink yourself, and why ”black girl” is both a noun and the most expansive verb in the language. Plus: the craft of reverse-engineering stage performance into written prose, and more.
Guest Bio:
Amena Brown is a spoken word poet, author, and performing artist whose work interweaves keep-it-real storytelling, rhyme, and humor. A proud graduate of Spelman College and a former poetic partner for Tracee Ellis Ross’ natural hair brand, PATTERN Beauty, Amena is the author of five spoken-word albums and three nonfiction books. Her new book of comedic essays, Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl, is available at your favorite bookseller. As a stage performer, Amena turns arenas, theaters, and performance venues into living rooms where the audience and her readers can make themselves at home. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, DJ Opdiggy, and their dog Kane.
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Questions or comments?
Email us at [email protected].
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/swoop/success
License code: SQK0ZY8P3EBIUZYY
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