MILK Podcast: Lost and Found, Season 3, Episode 15: Anti-Racism, CURE and Before I Go with Activist/Artist Nicole Alifante

Nicole Alifante is a former actress, current singer songwriter, teacher and activist, and she joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Nicole is the founder of the non- profit organization CURE, which stands for: Coalition for Understanding Racism in Education, based in Westchester, NY.

CURE engages in hard conversations about the construction of race and systemic racism by bringing in seasoned speakers and activists. Nicole is an artist, and she brings her heart and soul to her art, but also to listening and amplifying other people’s voices. Since she was on MILK Podcast in 2017, Nicole has grown CURE and is deeply committed to doing anti racism work in her community.

We follow up the conversation from 2018 and see where she is right now, in the time of COVID-19, working and creating as an anti-racism activist/artist mom. Follow Nicole's music at www.nicolealifante.com and CURE at www.learnwithcure.com.

Listen to Nicole's interview from Season 1, Epsiode 22 as well, to get a sense of Nicole’s trajectory as an activist who is learning and growing every day.

MILK Podcast: Lost and Found, Season 3 Episode 13: Electing Black Women during Covid-19, Racial Justice and Higher Heights Redux with Political Fundraiser and Consultant Kimberly Peeler-Allen

Kimberly Peeler Allen is back with Mallory two years later in the MILK Studio. Kimberly has been working at the intersection of race, gender and politics for almost 20 years. She is the Co-founder of Higher Heights, a national organization building the political power and leadership of Black women from the voting booth to elected office.

Higher Heights has helped drive the national narrative about the power of Black women voters and has inspired countless Black women to step into their power whether it is as voters, activists or elected leaders.

Kimberly and her Co-Founder Glynda Carr built Higher Heights from an idea on the back of a placemat into a network of over 90,000 members, donors and activists across the country that have helped elect 10 Black women to Congress, 1 Black woman to the US Senate and grow the number of Black women in statewide executive office and leading our nation’s largest cities.

A highly skilled political fundraiser and event planner, Kimberly was the principal of Peeler-Allen Consulting, LLC from 2003 to 2014, the only African American full-time fundraising consulting firm in New York State. Kimberly served as finance director for Letitia James’ successful bid to become Public Advocate of the City of New York and the first African American woman elected citywide in New York’s history. Kimberly also served as the Co-Executive Director of New York Attorney General Letitia James' Transition Committee when she was elected to that office in November of 2018.

In 2018, Kimberly was selected as one of the Roddenberry Fellowship's 20 established and emerging activists to devote an entire year to projects that will make the U.S. more inclusive and equitable through their inaugural cohort.

Kimberly also serves as a board member of ERA Coalition and the Fund for Women's Equity. She is currently a visiting professor at the Center for American Women and Politics at Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

She is drawing on her life experience as an organizer and operative to write her first book, Activist Momma, a celebration of this intersection and the gifts that mothers bring to movement work. It profiles the lives of a group of black women who are leading some of the most impactful movements at the local and national level. 

Follow Kimberly on twitter @kimberp_a and @higherheights and @higherheightsPAC to support getting more Black women into elected office. You all better have voted in your state's primaries, or Kimberly will be very disappointed, and you don’t want that.

MILK Podcast: Lost and Found, Season 3 Episode 8: Home-Schooling, Home Teaching, Diversity Equity and Inclusion with Educator Nikki Turpin

Educator Nikki Turpin is in the MILK Podcast Studio with Mallory. Nikki is a teacher at Nashoba Brooks School in Concord, MA and this fall will be the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion leader at an independent school in New England. She is the Programming Director for Robbins House, and African American Museum in Concord and leads the Youth In Philanthropy Program at Middlesex School for Foundation for MetroWest.

Nikki has long held a passion for African-American history and recently presented at the Association of African American Museums, discussing the importance of telling the full stories of African-American female suffragists. She leads professional development workshops and leadership trainings for kids and adults as a diversity and inclusion consultant, and has worked in public, private, and independent education for over a decade.

She has been closely observing the effects of distance learning as an educator, a spouse, and a parent, and shares thoughts about her own daughter's racial identity and how her and her husband are navigating their quarantine household of home schooling and working from home as teachers. Follow Nikki @naturpin on Instagram.

Episode 22: Singing, Songwriting, Soul Searching and Social Justice with Nicole Alifante

Nicole Alifante joins Mallory in the MILK Studio. Nicole put a successful acting career on hold to raise her son, and is now pursuing music with a new sense of purpose.

They discuss epiphanies about racism and privilege, actively participating in local politics, and finding peace in writing songs and collaboration. Nicole’s new album, “La La La,” is available on iTunes and shows her soulful range as an original songwriter and singer.