Welcome to Public Health on Call, a new podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Josh Sharfstein, a faculty member of Johns Hopkins, and also a former health commissioner in Baltimore City.

Until now, our sole focus with this podcast has been COVID-19, the global

pandemic. Today, we're going to begin to broaden the podcast to other urgent public health

issues, beginning with racism, police violence, and the national protest over the homicide

of George Floyd.

In this episode, I speak with Chris Wilson, an artist, advocate for social justice,

an author of a compelling book about his own experiences in and out of prison.

Let's listen.

I'm glad to be joined by Chris Wilson, the author of the book The Master Plan,

My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose.

And Chris spoke to public health policy class about one year ago at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And I wanted to reach out to him to talk about what's

been going on.

Chris, how are you doing?

I'm doing OK.

Thanks for having me.

Tell me, as you have seen the killing of George Floyd,

all the protests, so much happening in the United States

the last few days, what's been going through your mind?

Quite honestly, if I had to describe it in one word, I would say rage. Very, very painful to watch.

Every day it seems to be increasingly difficult to watch the news, to understand what's going on.

...