STL on the Air 📻

The directors and subject of “St. Louis Superman,” the documentary film showcasing the story of former Missouri state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., will be in Los Angeles for this Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony. The film has been nominated for a Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar. The documentary follows Franks’ journey as a lawmaker and his push for a proposal to recognize youth violence as a public health epidemic. In this interview, we hear from the film’s directors, Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan.

Washington University’s Adia Harvey Wingfield, who is a professor of sociology, has long been interested in the ways that race, class and gender influence everyday workplace structures and interactions. Her most recent book, “Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy,” looks closely at the experiences of black workers in health care — as does a new study of which she is the co-author. Focused around 60 in-depth interviews with black doctors, nurses and technicians, the study suggests that among people of color, one’s professional status within an organizational hierarchy has a significant effect on how one perceives instances of racial discrimination. In this segment, Harvey Wingfield joins host Sarah Fenske to discuss the implications of this research for the health care industry and beyond.

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis recently announced its latest multidisciplinary artist patrons can expect to see at the space during its First Fridays and other CAM events. James Biko is an East St. Louis-born and St. Louis-based artist prominent in the local hip-hop and soul scene. He’s been on the radar of music aficionados in the city, and is a ten-time Riverfront Times Music Award winner. He also co-hosts the “Rawthentic” radio program, with Cleo Jones on KDHX, which plays hip-hop, R&B and soul on Thursday evenings. Besides the local recognition, Biko has also performed at national and international music festivals. On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, Biko joins host Sarah Fenske to talk about his new residency and musical process.

In January, St. Louis’ regional transit agency considered taking on operation of the embattled Loop Trolley — and ultimately declined to do so. At this month’s meeting of the Bi-State Development board, a totally different project’s future will come before the agency: the two shipping-container-sized grocery stores located along MetroLink in north St. Louis County. The stores are operated by a nonprofit subcontractor, Link Market, which formed about two years ago. They were funded by a grant Bi-State was awarded from the Missouri Foundation for Health and meant to be a pilot project addressing the region’s food deserts. But this past summer, as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger, Link Market founder Dr. Jeremy Goss learned Bi-State had concerns about their financial viability. After a meeting of various parties in St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s office, the shipping-container markets got an extension from Bi-State. And as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Andrew Nguyen explains in this segment in conversation with Goss and host Sarah Fenske, Bi-State’s board should vote Feb. 21 on a proposal to donate the shipping containers to the Link Market.

After Left Bank Books cancelled a planned event late last month with bestselling author Jeanine Cummins in the wake of outcry about her new novel, the independent bookstore met with waves of feedback from every corner, some of it very angry. In this segment, the St. Louis on the Air team seeks to take the conversation that the situation has sparked and push it forward in productive ways. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Kleindienst and with Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a professor of Spanish, Latin American Studies and Film and Media Studies at Washington University who was born in Mexico. Also joining the discussion is Kelly Von Plonski, owner of Subterranean Books. The segment also includes brief comments from Christina Rios and Alicia Hernandez, who are both members of the local Latinx community. Rios was until recently the longtime artistic director of R-S Theatrics, and Hernandez is a local community organizer working on immigration issues.

The Sister Cities International program began in 1956, and the people-to-people, citizen diplomacy initiative took off across the country. A few years later, in 1960, St. Louis’ first partnership abroad flourished in Stuttgart, Germany, through the World Trade Center St. Louis' international mission. Now St. Louis has 16 sisters abroad, from Argentina and Senegal to Indonesia. Host Sarah Fenske learned more about what it takes to become a sister city with Susanne Evens, president of St. Louis-Stuttgart Sister Cities Committee, and Tim Nowak, executive director of World Trade Center St. Louis.

Host Sarah Fenske talks up some of the latest additions to the St. Louis region’s food-and-beverage community. Joining her for the Hit List segment are Sauce Magazine managing editor Heather Hughes Huff and art director Meera Nagarajan.

Host Sarah Fenske discusses the influence of the black vote on local and national politics. Joining her for the conversation is Shakia Gullette, director of African American Initiatives for the Missouri Historical Society, and Gena McClendon, director of the Voter Access and Engagement and the Financial Capability and Asset Building initiatives at the Center for Social Development at Washington University.

Host Sarah Fenske talks to Gabe Fleisher from the "Wake Up To Politics" podcast about the Iowa caucuses.

The impeachment proceedings in Washington, D.C., have frequently lasted into the evening hours. Beyond thinking about the legal issues that senators are grappling with, we found ourselves contemplating something a bit closer to home. Namely, the modern American attention span. When you’re used to checking your phone every five minutes, how do you possibly sit quietly for hours on end … listening? Joining host Sarah Fenske to discuss the matter is Jameca Falconer, a professor of Behavioral Analysis in the Webster University. Steve Smith also joins the conversation. He’s the director of Washington University’s Weidenbaum Center.

Established in 1920, Washington Park Cemetery in Berkeley served as a for-profit burial place for African Americans. Before it stopped operating in the 1980s, the graveyard became the largest African American cemetery in the region. However, years of neglect and various city project expansions were not kind to the burial grounds. Now the cemetery may soon come under public ownership. The City of Berkeley is in the process of purchasing Washington Park Cemetery. In this episode, we talk about what happened to Washington Park Cemetery and remember the stories of those who are buried there. We also talk with advocates for two other historic black cemeteries in the region, Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale and Father Dickson Cemetery in Crestwood, about how they fight abandonment and lack of upkeep to keep their history alive.

For years, Bob Romanik’s presence on St. Louis-area AM radio airwaves has been marked by constant, overt racism. Somehow, the Illinois-based shock jock remains on air, as the Riverfront Times’ Danny Wicentowski notes in his latest reporting on the saga. But as Wicentowski detailed in his story published Monday, the current Federal Communications Commission investigation surrounding Romanik has to do with something else: evidence that he is acting as the de-facto owner of Entertainment Media Trust, which owns multiple radio stations in the region. As a felon, that’s something Romanik is barred from doing. Jane Halprin, an FCC administrative law judge, issued an order last Friday setting a Feb. 10 deadline for EMT’s attorney to explain, as Wicentowski reported, “why she shouldn't throw the license renewal applications out due to ‘EMT’s continuous efforts at obfuscation.’” In this episode, host Sarah Fenske talks with Wicentowski about the implications of this investigation — and what happens next for the “Grim Reaper of Radio.”

The year 2020 marks a lot of developments related to the habit of lighting up. The federal sales age for purchasing tobacco and nicotine products is now 21 and older. Recreational marijuana is now sold in cities across Illinois. Missouri dispensaries are selling medical marijuana. And, teenagers are continuing to vape at rates that concern public health officials. In this interview, Sarah Fenske talks about the impact of these developments with Dr. Laura Bierut, a psychiatry professor and founding director of the Health & Behavior Research Center at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Chef Rob Connoley’s acclaimed St. Louis restaurant, Bulrush, isn’t just a delicious night out. It’s also a deep dive into the culinary history of the region. The Grand Center eatery takes its inspiration from cuisine in the Ozarks region prior to 1870, before railroads allowed for easy transport of foodstuffs. And, in recent months, the restaurant has doubled down on that exploration. Aided by college interns, Connoley has begun researching the food of marginalized populations in the area at that time. That includes both indigenous people, enslaved people and freed slaves. In this segment, we talk with Connoley and St. Louis University student Gabriel Shoemaker, and with Dr. Andrea Hunter, director/tribal historic preservation officer for the Osage Nation Historic Preservation Office. She discusses what the Osage ate prior to their first encounters with Europeans in 1673, and how that changed in the centuries that followed.

In St. Louis County, it’s illegal to be a "vagrant." Host Sarah Fenske talks with attorney Bevis Schock — who is challenging the ordinance — and learns about what his client has endured.

Kaldi’s Coffee is a St. Louis company. Other than a few outlets in the Atlanta area, Kaldi’s lacks a physical presence outside Missouri. But in the past year, Kaldi’s co-owner Tricia Zimmer Ferguson has been spending time far from the Midwest — in Rwanda. Ferguson is also working with the nation’s only women’s college, Akilah Institute. A group from Kaldi’s is committed to teaching its students about the coffee and tea industries, opening career opportunities for them. Zimmer Ferguson and Karen Sherman, president of Akilah Institute, join host Sarah Fenske to discuss the collaboration.

The director of the St. Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine, Dr. Sharon Deem, wants people to understand just how much human health is dependent on the health of other animals and the environment. The interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment is the main focus of the CDC’s “One Health” movement, in which the St. Louis Zoo is a leader. In this interview, Deem talks about emerging public health issues, everyday solutions to global threats and the St. Louis Zoo’s role within the One Health movement.

Growing up in north St. Louis County, where she was leading choirs by the time she was 12 years old, Maria Ellis remembers thinking about St. Louis Children’s Choirs as “the ultimate vocal group.” But as her alma mater, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, notes in a recent UMSL Daily story about Ellis’ journey, Ellis couldn’t afford to join the SLCC program as a child. She did participate in one of the organization’s community honors choirs, and now she’s come full circle, having landed a position as SLCC’s community engagement manager several years ago. But shortly after starting that job, she realized the north St. Louis County honors choir she’d so enjoyed as a child was no more. Now, in 2020, it’s coming back thanks to Ellis.

On the heels of Bi-State Development's meeting where committee members declined to move forward a proposal that the regional transit agency take over trolley operations, St. Louis Public Radio's Kae Petrin joins host Sarah Fenske in studio to talk about it.

In the popular imagination, Cahokia seems to represent a cautionary tale. What today remains only as a series of mounds outside Collinsville, Illinois, used to be a thriving city — bigger than London in the mid-13th century. There may have been as many as 40,000 people living there. Yet in the years that followed, the population faced rapid decline. By 1400, what was a city had become a wasteland. Yet a new paper suggests that narrative is at best incomplete. Published yesterday in “American Antiquity,” the study uses fecal deposits to show that the exodus from the site was short-lived. A fresh wave of native people settled in Cahokia and repopulated the area from 1500 to 1700. In this segment, A.J. White discusses the paper and how the longer timeline of his study destroys “the myth of Cahokia’s Native American lost civilization.” A doctoral student in anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, White is the study’s lead author.