Episodi

  • Joy Oladokun: Becoming The Voice of The People

    Joy Oladokun: Becoming The Voice of The People
    Nov 4 2026
    Welcome to Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice. This season, we’re swirling up inspiring stories from progressive heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. For a music artist, you'd think a record label cutting your album budget by 90% would end your music career. For Joy Oladokun, it's what catapulted hers: self-produced, uncompromising, and part of the soundtrack of protest. Joy Oladokun became a songwriter to help other artists survive. She ended up becoming the artist she'd been trying to save. When her label cut her advance by nearly 90%, she made the record anyway, self-produced, uncompromising, and built for the people who needed it most. A singer-songwriter and producer working at the intersection of Americana, soul, and Afrofuturism, Joy's music is confessional, politically grounded, and built for the person on the bus, on the way to a protest, carrying more than anyone can see. Her new album, Hope Is a Heavy Thing, is out now. Ashley C. Ford sits down with Joy on Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice to discuss the importance of speaking up even when it’s costly. Follow Joy here! Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.
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    40 min
  • Renee Bracey Sherman: Liberating Abortion

    Renee Bracey Sherman: Liberating Abortion
    Oct 28 2026
    Welcome to Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice. This season, we’re swirling up inspiring stories from progressive heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. You might not have expected abortion to be relitigated 50 years after Roe v. Wade passed. But thirteen states now enforce total abortion bans. Five more restrict abortion at six weeks — before most people know they're pregnant. The fight for reproductive justice has never been more urgent and who gets to tell that story has never mattered more. Renee Bracey Sherman had an abortion at nineteen. She paid $450 out of pocket on an $8.50-an-hour salary and kept it secret for six years. When she finally shared her story with the world, she was inspired to build a career liberating abortion from stigma. From founding We Testify to publishing her book Liberating Abortion to a Ph.D. centered on abortion narratives, Renee’s work is a testament to the power of storytelling. Renee joins Ashley C. Ford on Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, to talk about stigma, reproductive justice, and what it means to tell the truth in a room that wasn't built for your story. Want to learn more about Renee’s work? Follow Renee here. Check out her book, Liberating Abortion. And take the pledge with Ben & Jerry’s & ACLU to fight for reproductive freedom. Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.
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    45 min
  • Jose Antonio Vargas: Defining American

    Jose Antonio Vargas: Defining American
    Oct 21 2026
    Welcome to Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice. This season, we’re swirling up inspiring stories from progressive heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. You might expect someone undocumented to stay invisible. Jose Antonio Vargas built a renowned career, won a Pulitzer Prize and then chose to reveal his truth. It changed his life and his life’s work in ways he never expected. Jose Antonio Vargas came to the United States from the Philippines at twelve years old. He grew up here, built a prolific career in journalism here, won a Pulitzer Prize here, and did all of it without documentation. In 2011, he decided to self-report as undocumented and it changed his life, but not in the ways he expected. Jose’s story is about what it costs to be seen as an immigrant, and why the stories we tell about immigration need reform. The stakes couldn't be higher right now. How we talk about immigration matters– storytelling has always been a tool for immigrant rights, but in this climate, visibility can also mean vulnerability. Jose is calling on journalists to rethink how they report on immigration: humanity over othering, community over isolation. Jose sits down with Ashley C. Ford on this episode to discuss the alarming state of human rights in America today and how urgently the way we talk about it and report on it needs to change. You can follow Jose’s work with Define American to humanize the immigrant story here. Take action with the ACLU and Ben & Jerry’s and demand all eyes on ICE Detention NOW HERE. Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.
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    43 min
  • Kyle Mesteth: Building Community One Skateboard At A Time

    Kyle Mesteth: Building Community One Skateboard At A Time
    Oct 14 2026
    Welcome to Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice. This season, we’re swirling up inspiring stories from progressive heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. You'd never expect skateboarding to be a growing movement amongst indigenous communities in the US. For generations, the story told about reservation life has been defined almost entirely by what's missing: by poverty rates, by unemployment, by absence of resources. What rarely makes the headline is what people are building on their own terms, with their own hands, for their own communities. Kyle Mesteth grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, sovereign Oglala Lakota land in so-called South Dakota. After experiencing devastating loss, he turned to the one thing that kept him going, skateboarding. What started with a borrowed building and a stack of donated skateboards became Ground Control: a skate park, a recording studio, a film set, a music stage, and a garden where Lakota youth can create, compete, and see themselves as the main characters of their own story. Kyle joins Ashley C. Ford on Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice to talk about community, creativity, and what it looks like to build hope from the ground up. Want to support Ground Control? You can follow Kyle and all things Ground Control here. Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.
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    39 min
  • BG: More Than A Game

    BG: More Than A Game
    Oct 7 2026
    Welcome to Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice. This season, we’re swirling up inspiring stories from progressive heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. You might not expect a basketball superstar to become a cannabis justice advocate. BG spent nearly ten months detained in a Russian prison for traveling with cannabis oil in her luggage. She came home to a cannabis justice system that is still arresting and locking people up for possession of a substance now legal in nearly half the country. The same world that punished her for simply being who she is, in locker rooms long before she ever set foot in a foreign cell. She decided to fight harder. BG, a WNBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and one of the most compelling voices in the fight for cannabis justice and the wrongfully incarcerated, joins Ashley C. Ford on Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice. Join Ben & Jerry’s and The Last Prisoner Project in the fight for clemency for those who are incarcerated for cannabis. Call on your governor to grant clemency for those with cannabis-related convictions here. Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.
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    38 min
  • Marley Dias: Protecting Every Story

    Marley Dias: Protecting Every Story
    Sep 30 2026
    Welcome to Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice. This season, we’re swirling up inspiring stories from progressive heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. You'd think challenging the publishing industry would take the combined efforts of writers, publishers, and activists. Instead, one ten-year-old (now twenty one) sparked the conversation. Marley Dias was ten when she looked at the books being assigned in her school and noticed that girls who looked like her were almost nowhere to be found. She didn't wait for someone else to fix it. She launched #1000BlackGirlBooks — a campaign to collect and distribute books featuring Black girls as the main character — and what started as a three-month project became an international movement that put diverse books into the hands of children around the world. Now a Harvard graduate with her own books out, Marley has grown her work from fighting for representation to transforming the systems that prevented it in the first place. Marley joins Ashley C. Ford on Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast to talk about representation, resistance, and what it looks like to rewrite the rules from the inside. Want to get involved? Pledge to fight for your First Amendment rights with Ben & Jerry’s and the ACLU. Follow Marley Dias and learn more about the #1000BlackGirlBooks Order Marley's new book “I Am The Dream Come True” Support the Grassroots Community Foundation in rebuilding the Saint James Parish Library in Jamaica Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.
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    34 min
  • Into the Mix Season 4 Trailer: Unexpected Heroes

    Into the Mix Season 4 Trailer: Unexpected Heroes
    Sep 18 2026
    A new season of Into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry’s podcast about joy and justice, is back! Hosted by Ashley C. Ford, we’re bringing you inspiring stories from unexpected heroes. People who didn’t set out to be activists, but found themselves stepping up for something bigger than themselves. Like a singer/songwriter whose music headlines protests; an award-winning journalist whose story of being undocumented is changing how journalists discuss immigration; a WNBA champion who is using her influence to fight cannabis injustice and so much more. Tune in weekly to experience these amazing stories of courage, creativity, joy and justice.
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    1 min
  • War on Woke: Where We Hold Out Hope

    War on Woke: Where We Hold Out Hope
    Nov 27 2024
    Antonio and other business owners in Florida sued the state after the Stop WOKE Act was signed, and won. What does that mean for the future of the act, and for business owners in the state? In our final episode of the season, we’re taking a deep dive into the fraught conversation of D.E.I., the “war on woke,” and what it really takes to dismantle white supremacy.
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    44 min