Four presidents. Four libraries. This episode explores the LBJ Library, where the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act reshaped the law. The JFK Library, where leadership, public service, and the enduring relevance of American ideals converge. The Carter Library, where human rights became foreign policy, but domestic racial equity continues to be a complicated story. And finally, the Obama Presidential Center, the first of its kind built without federal archives, built instead as a living investment on Chicago's South Side. Christopher John offers a candid reflection on the institutions, what resonated with him, and what it means for a nation still deciding how honestly it will tell its own story.

Georgia, the last former Confederate state readmitted to the Union is now the state that elected the first Black woman governor in American history. Keisha Lance Bottoms made history on November 3, 2026, and history, as it turns out, has a long memory and a sharper sense of timing.

Georgia now holds eight Black women in key statewide positions, including Governor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Attorney General Tanya Miller, Secretary of State Penny Brown Reynolds, State School Superintendent Lydia Glaize Powell, Labor Commissioner Nikki Porcher, Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Keisha Sean Waites, Agriculture Commissioner Katherine E. Juhan-Arnold, and Public Service Commissioner Shiela Edwards.

In this episode, we connect Henry McNeal Turner’s defiance in 1868 to today’s historical Georgian milestone, while honoring Stacey Abrams for paving the way.

The hands of time keep moving. Press play and decide what you will do with yours.

When and how did Black hair become political in America? And what does that long history tell us about why we are still fighting this fight in 2026?

Here is the answer. It was never about hair.

American beauty standards labeled natural Black hair "unkempt" and "unprofessional," pressuring generations to straighten, conform, and shrink. That was not a trend. It was a system of racial control and assimilation. Then came the 1960s and 70s, when the Afro became a crown of the Black Power movement, a visible rejection of Eurocentric norms and a declaration of cultural pride. Wearing your hair as it grows from your head became an act of resistance.

In this episode, we explain the CROWN Act, which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. It protects people from discrimination based on hair texture and protective styles like braids, locs, and twists in schools and workplaces. We ask why a law like this is needed at all, and why a federal version keeps stalling in Congress.

But hair is only the doorway.

Walk through it and you land in the neighborhood where redlining still draws the map. Between 1935 and 1940, the Homeowners’ Loan Corporation graded 239 cities by race, ethnicity, and perceived risk. Black and immigrant neighborhoods were marked red, and federally backed mortgages vanished. The Federal Housing Administration refused to insure loans in those areas while subsidizing white suburban growth.

Today, more than 8 million Americans still live in formerly redlined neighborhoods. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed the practice, but the patterns did not disappear. They evolved.

Press play. Learn the history. Then ask who is leading with humanity, and who is just leading.

Dr. Vaneesa Enoch comes to the table for a provocative conversation that challenges conventional narratives about power, politics, and who gets to shape the future of American democracy. Long before they were elected to public office, Black women were organizing communities, building institutions, mentoring future leaders, and creating the political infrastructure that has sustained movements for justice and equality. Yet their leadership has too often been overlooked, undervalued, or deliberately marginalized.

This episode examines the undeniable influence of Black women as pioneers of political organizing, civic engagement, and transformational leadership. We explore why Black women consistently demonstrate extraordinary campaign effectiveness and voter mobilization while continuing to confront systemic barriers, including fundraising inequities, racialized and gendered stereotypes, media scrutiny, and institutional gatekeeping.

Dr. Enoch also shares the personal convictions that inspired her congressional candidacy, offering insight into the challenges, responsibilities, and opportunities of seeking public office in an era marked by deep political division and heightened attacks on representative democracy.

At its core, this candid conversation asks a bold question: What would American democracy look like if the leadership, vision, and political labor of Black women were no longer treated as exceptional, but recognized as essential? Through history, experience, and an unwavering commitment to public service, this episode invites listeners to reconsider who has truthfully been doing the work of strengthening our democracy and who will help shape its future.

For more information: https://enochforcongress.com/

September is International Underground Railroad Month. And if you're looking for the blueprint on civil disobedience converged with social justice, look no further than the UGRR itself, a movement the Black church led.

In this candid conversation, Rev. Dr. Richard Hughes shares his poignant perspective on the social justice identity of the Black Church. We ask the question too many congregations are avoiding: what happened to the church that used to hide freedom seekers in its basement and now can't say the word "injustice" from the pulpit?

Somewhere between then and now, too many of our churches have adopted capitalistic mindset. Prosperity gospel replacing liberation gospel. Comfort replacing conviction. The same institution that once provided refuge for Freedom Seekers now hesitates to name injustices.

It's ABOUT TIME we call it what it is!

For generations, Black filmmakers have challenged the stories America reveals about itself, reclaiming narratives too often erased, distorted, or ignored. Every frame has the power to preserve memory, spark dialogue, and inspire movements that transcend the screen.

In this episode of GOT TIME with Christopher John, we talk with Donna Dabbs, founder and executive director of the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival (GCUFF), to explore how one of the nation's premier Black film festivals has become far more than a showcase for independent cinema. It has become a cultural institution where history, identity, creativity, and community converge.

Celebrating its fifteenth year, GCUFF continues to elevate filmmakers from across the African Diaspora, creating opportunities for emerging artists while connecting audiences to stories that educate, challenge, and transform. Together, we examine why authentic representation matters, how Black film functions as both historical record and cultural resistance, and why independent storytellers remain essential to preserving the richness and complexity of the Black experience.

Our conversation explores the responsibility of cultural institutions to invest in Black creative voices, the evolution of independent filmmaking, the importance of creating spaces where underrepresented stories can flourish, and the enduring relationship between cinema, social justice, and collective memory.

From documentaries that uncover forgotten histories to narrative films that imagine new futures, this episode reminds us that Black cinema is not simply entertainment. It is preservation, protest, and possibilities.

Link: Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival

What happens when the institution entrusted with the pursuit of truth becomes an instrument of suppression? What does ethical leadership look like when the policy is the problem? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Darryl B. Rice, the Richard T. Farmer Associate Professor of Management at Miami University and Associate Editor at the Journal of Managerial Psychology. An award-winning scholar whose research centers organizational justice, behavioral ethics, well-being, and diversity, equity, and inclusion, Dr. Rice brings both intellectual firepower and lived experience to a conversation that is as urgent as it is clarifying.

Dr. Rice isn't just studying ethical leadership from a distance; he is living it in real time. In April 2025, Miami University began dismantling its DEI programs and initiatives in compliance with Ohio's Senate Bill 1, the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, which effectively prohibits DEI offices and training courses at public universities. Dr. Rice, who built a record of service through DEI committees, the Across-the-Divide Conference, the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion, and the Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellows Program, filed a federal lawsuit against Miami University's Board of Trustees in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, arguing that the closures violated his First Amendment rights and his academic freedom as a tenured faculty member.

This episode doesn't just cover a lawsuit. It excavates the architecture of institutional power, the weaponization of legislation against protected speech, and what it costs a scholar, personally and professionally, to stand on the side of justice when the institution moves against it.

Hollywood's new civil rights thriller invents a mafia hitman to share the spotlight with a Black FBI agent hunting the killers of civil rights leaders in 1966 Mississippi. The real story needs no invention. This episode tells the true account of Vernon Dahmer, a Black farmer and NAACP leader who was firebombed and murdered by the Klan for offering to pay poll taxes so his neighbors could vote and asks why the truth still isn't enough for the big screen.