Lessons from 1964 Freedom Summer (with Judy Richardson)

How To Not Lose Your Sh!t

Red Wine & Blue

Parenting, Health & Fitness, Kids & Family, News, Mental Health, Politics

4.7 • 892 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We were so lucky this week to talk to Judy Richardson, who fought for civil rights alongside John Lewis during the original 1964 Freedom Summer. She hasn't stopped fighting in the years since and we were honored to hear her inspiring (and, at times, harrowing) stories of being shot at by white supremacists, years of on-the-ground organizing, and hunger strikes in jail. It was all worth it, Judy says, to pursue voting rights for Black people in the South. When we asked her what kept her ...

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is folks just like us who made and sustained the movement. You know, it's our cousins,
0:06.3	our mothers, our clergy, our teachers. And if we don't remember that we were the ones who did that,
0:11.4	we won't know that we can do it again.
0:14.1	Our double you, we came to make a change.
0:18.6	Hi, everyone. Welcome to How to Not Lose Your Shit.
0:21.7	I'm Katie Paris, founder of Red Wine and Blue.
0:24.5	And I'm Lofonda Cousin, a part-time yoga instructor, self-care advocate, and the chief people
0:28.7	officer here at Red Wine and Blue.
0:30.8	Okay.
0:31.3	So if we're going to talk about losing our shit, honestly, for me, it has a lot to do with the fact that not enough people are
0:39.1	talking about the insane attacks on civil rights right now. We have had the Voting Rights
0:44.6	Act completely decimated by the U.S. Supreme Court in just these last few weeks. And it just
0:51.6	feels like people are going on about their business. We had thousands of people
0:55.1	marching in Montgomery last weekend. And the media barely covered it LaFonda. So I'm very glad
1:02.3	that here at Red, Wine and Blue, we got hundreds of women together. And we have been amplifying
1:08.0	what has been going on in terms of the court decision, how people
1:11.9	on the ground are responding to this. We are absolutely going to fight back. And even when
1:16.7	we're frustrated with the media, like all the more important to channel frustration,
1:21.3	our anger, our, what did our guest today call it? Her pissed offedness or something.
1:25.7	Pissidness. Yeah, her pissingness.
1:35.3	We've got to channel it. She said, do not succumb. Have the fear, have the anger, but do not succumb because we cannot let them win. You guys, if you're hearing LaFonda
1:40.7	and me like talking a little fast right now. It is because we are energized.
	...

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