Hello kids, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they

dare to share.

I'm Kevin Allyson, and every Thursday we release these special episodes where we look

back at content from our earlier years.

Sometimes single stories, sometimes whole episodes, keep in mind that years ago people might

have awarded things differently than they would today.

As always, the title of the whole series, Risk, is itself a content warning.

This week, in honor of the Juneteenth holiday, we're rerunning an extraordinary story by

Maya James, who you can find at MayaJJames.webly.com.

Maya discovered the podcast when she was 11, and she emailed me when she was 17 to say

that she felt Risk had saved her life, that she found real grounding in listening to people's

stories of resilience on the show.

I was so moved by that email that I said, well, pictures of story.

It's okay that you're younger than the average Risk storyteller.

But here's something I only realized this week.

This story was recorded just a few hours before Donald Trump announced he was running for

president in June of 2015.

When Maya and I got on Skype to record this story together, we had no idea what that day

would end up meaning.

You know, that a tidal wave of overt racism was about to explode into American society,

to a degree most of us hadn't seen so publicly in your face in decades.

But the good news is that Maya, who is, I believe, 23 now, is absolutely flourishing.

...