I'm Ashley C. Ford, and this is Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative.

Let's get into it.

Today we're talking about Black Joy and how to remove the obstacles to it.

We're looking at how one organization takes a unique approach to this work.

But first, let's take a little drive.

Let's head east from New York City, out towards the end of Long Island, the end that

disappears into the Atlantic Ocean.

If you're driving out, you'll see the map of the island change.

First there's the tightly packed city blocks and Queens and Brooklyn, then big box stores

dot the highway in the middle of the island, and then eventually farmlands and outlet malls

and rocky beaches.

Out there, about 75 miles from Manhattan, is a town called Riverhead.

The last exit on the Long Island Expressway.

Rashad Robinson grew up in Riverhead.

My family actually got there through the Great Migration.

So the farm fields of Southern Virginia to the farm fields

of Long Island. They eventually worked as laborers, lived on the Duck Ranch. So if you see Long Island

duck on the menu, those were oftentimes sort of land where black people were allowed to live.

Long Island has a deep history of racism,

which includes redlining in housing mortgages,

schools that were effectively, if not officially segregated,

and express ways that were built through the middle of black neighborhoods,

...