Into the Mix

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 pledgewith Ben & Jerry’s & ACLU to fight for reproductive freedom.

Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you think of sustainability and social justice, you might not think of a Vermont soccer team leading the charge. With the professional sports industry generating roughly 350 million tons of carbon every year, most pro teams don’t even put sustainability on the bench. But what if sports could be fun and score big for sustainability and social justice? Not as a tagline or a charitable add-on but structurally: in how it runs, how it travels, what it does with its waste, its relationship with the community it plays for, and what it asks of the people who wear its jersey. Vermont Green Football Club became an answer to those questions.

Patrick Infurna, co-founder of the 2025 championship-winning Vermont FC joins Ashley C. Ford on Into the Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast about joy and justice to talk about environmental justice, compassionate masculinity, social justice and what it looks like to build true community.

Want to support the work of Vermont Green FC? You can follow them here.

Support the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

And check out Vermont Green FC’s partnership with Vermont Works for Women.

Music provided by Shearaton Carter: Slow Season, Epidemic Sound. Custom Music by: Rondell Patterson.

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.

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.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is on a mission to curb conversations about race, diversity, and inequity of all shades. He’s banned books, trainings, and classes. He’s introduced laws and attacked businesses of all sizes.

But why? What is the motivation behind the so-called “War on Woke” and where do we go from here?

According to Antonio McBroom, a day without dessert is a disaster. So it makes sense that he’s now an ice cream entrepreneur, slinging scoops of Ben & Jerry’s up and down the Florida coast.

At the core of Antonio’s business model is leadership training and mentorship for all of his scoop shop managers. So when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis introduced the Stop WOKE act in 2021, he had two options: immediately halt training on diversity, equity and bias, or face potential legal action from the state.

In the final mini-series of this season, we’re heading to Florida to learn how the Stop WOKE act has censored businesses, chilled critical conversations about equity, and spurred business owners like Antonio to fight back.

We'll be back in November with our final mini-series of this season which delves into Florida's War on Woke and the ongoing fight to protect diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In the meantime, listen to some of our past episodes of Into the Mix. To learn more about how to support communities in Florida impacted by hurricane Milton, visit HERE.

Ms. Livvy’s heroic efforts to protect voting rights have come at a cost. Her health has suffered, and she’s tired. But she knows there’s more work to do, especially with the November election on the very near horizon.

In our final episode from Georgia, we’re diving into why your vote matters, why it’s a fundamental right, and the key ingredient to sustaining the fight for voting rights: joy.

Learn more at http://benjerry.com/vote and get involved with Black Voters Matter here.

Ms. Livvy has watched as Georgia has become ground zero for voter suppression efforts. Laws that wipe people from the polls are popping up left and right, all claiming to curb so-called voter fraud… even though studies have shown over and over again that rates of voter fraud are between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent.

Here’s what is a real issue: voter suppression. And as we get ready to cast our votes in November, the best way to make sure our election is representative of the country is to ensure that everyone who’s eligible can vote. Here’s how you can help.

Learn more at http://benjerry.com/vote and get involved with Black Voters Matter here.

Voters in Coffee County, Georgia have another name for this place: Crooked Coffee, where elections officials have waged war on voters of color for decades.

So residents weren't shocked when their tiny community made national headlines following the January 6th attack on the Capitol, after members of the GOP there allegedly allowed Trump associates to copy software and other sensitive digital elections materials in the days following the 2020 election. It was the latest chapter in the long story of so-called voter fraud in this small, majority-Black county – and Olivia Coley Pearson is tired.

Ms. Livvy, as she’s known in the community, is the descendant of a local voting rights hero, and she’s committed her life to furthering her mother’s legacy of fighting back against intimidation and suppression of voters of color, even as those attacks grow more personal. We’re headed to Georgia to meet Ms. Livvy in action, and to learn how she fought back against bogus voter fraud charges.

Learn more at http://benjerry.com/vote and get involved with Black Voters Matter here.

Ms. Sharon never thought she’d be the one to take down the industry harming her community. But as her fight gains momentum, she’s scoring wins that are making big impact.

And Jo Banner never thought she’d own a plantation. But it’s a powerful way to protect the past, while defending her neighbors from the petrochemical industry.

In the final episode of our series from the River Parishes, what happens when you dare to re-imagine a better future for your community, your family, and your home.

The violent history of Cancer Alley began long before the petrochemical industry arrived in the 1960s. Prior to being dominated by plastics plants, this land was home to plantations.

To understand how this stretch of the Louisiana River Parishes became a “sacrifice zone” – a place where plastic is more important than people – we’re taking a look back at the violent legacy of this land.

Here’s how Ms. Sharon and Jo Banner, a neighbor from nearby St. John the Baptist Parish, are working to honor the past as they fight for their future.

Learn more about the Descendants Project here.

The beautiful stretch of Louisiana where Ms. Sharon Lavigne lives goes by many names: the River Parishes, The Great River Road, The Mississippi River Industrial Corridor, and, worst of all... Cancer Alley.

This 85 mile stretch of riverbank houses over 150 petrochemical plants. The majority of these plants neighbor predominantly Black communities, many of which are historical free towns created by formerly enslaved people in the wake of abolition. And now, Ms. Sharon’s schedule is filled with funerals for their descendants, who are falling dangerously ill as the industry chokes out the community.

In this three-part series, the evolving harm of environmental racism, and how Ms. Sharon and her neighbors are rising up against it. Learn more about Rise St. James here.

How do you close a jail that’s as old as your city? Step one: gather your people.

In the final episode of this series from St. Louis, we’re talking to the politicians, disruptors, and rabble-rousers who joined Inez’s fight to close the Workhouse. Here’s how they did it, and how you can do it, too.

Want to close the jail or pre-trial detention center in your town? Learn more HERE. And check out the Bail Project’s resources on bail reform HERE.

More than half a million Americans are sitting in jail awaiting trial. And 60% of them are there because they can’t afford not to be.

That’s why the Workhouse jail in St. Louis stayed so full for so long. Some people jailed there were pulled over for speeding, others learned they had outstanding warrants for probation violations. All of them owed something to the courts.

In the second episode of this series, we’re taking the courts to court, to understand how the system kept The Workhouse jail full for over a century, and how Inez and the community of activists around her emptied it for good.

Inez Bordeaux needs you to know three things: she’s a mom of four, a Scorpio, and she always gets her lick back. So when a court error sent her life into a seven year tailspin, she came out swinging on the other side, and set her sights on justice. How? By closing the jail that symbolized the system that nearly buried her: The Workhouse.

In this three-part series, we’re taking you to St. Louis to meet Inez and the community of activists, lawyers, and politicians that joined together to close a notorious jail that’s almost as old as the city itself.

Please take care, as this episode discusses domestic violence. You can learn more about ArchCity Defenders here.