Bourbon 'n BrownTown
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Bourbon 'n BrownTown podcast tees featuring the BnB logo on the front and the SoapBox logo with @SoapBoxPO on the back near the collar. Support movement media and drip all the sauce at the same damn time.
Become a Bourbon 'n BrownTown Patron on Patreon ($2/month tier or higher) and get a discounted shirt! Patreon is a patronage, or membership-based, service for artists and creators that allows them to generate predictable, recurring revenue without giving up creative control to a larger entity. This includes a tiered membership system with different perks ($30+ tiers already include a T-shirt).
Bourbon 'n BrownTown podcast tees featuring the BnB logo on the front and the SoapBox logo with @SoapBoxPO on the back near the collar. Support movement media and drip all the sauce at the same damn time.
Not ready to make that Patreon commitment? No worries! Snag some BnB swag for $25.
**PLEASE NOTE the shipping options. If you're local to Chicago, select "Store Pick Up" to come by the office or "Pick Up" to arrange meeting BrownTown to avoid shipping costs!**
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Header and product photos by Sean Kelly.
Donate to the CIMA Fundraiser! TODAY IS THE LAST DAY!
The Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) has returned for its fourth annual joint fundraiser. SoapBox is a proud member of the CIMA, a coalition of local storytellers who collaborate to elevate all voices. This is not only an invitation to help preserve SoapBox’s work but to strengthen all of Chicago independent media. Please consider making a donation and/or telling the homies! Matching funds for donations are available for a limited time so the sooner you donate the better!
W H A T ' S G O O D ?
As technology and entertainment push the digital age forward, the need for inclusive communities of compassion, humanity, and justice continues to build. Our destinies are connected to each other. With that, we must remember that creative integrity and radical change are essential to our progress as a society. Check out some of our recent projects, events, and endeavors below.
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SoapBox Action Works |
Photo below by Jalen Hamilton.
Last photo by David A. Moran.
Last photo by David A. Moran.
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Episodic Series
The Collective Freedom ProjectIn this series, BrownTown and organizers in Chicago, Atlanta, Texas, and California discuss fighting for a world away from police and ICE violence and towards a world with life-affirming institutions, respect for our natural environments, collective freedom and liberation.
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Live Recordings & EventsBrownTown integrates and amplifies community voices around various political, cultural, and everyday topics to analyze, discuss, and further call to action holistic solutions and dialogue around its many themes through a participatory framework. Below is our first live recording at DePaul University.
Chi DNAThe Chicago Drill and Activism (AKA "Chi DNA") feature documentary and larger cross-platform, multi-media project explores the creation, meaning, perspectives, and connections between drill rap and the resurgence of grassroots activism since the early 2010s through the eyes of the people involved.
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Sponsorship & Live Podcast Events
Enjoy BrownTown? Work with the team to host an event at your school, organization, institution, or event! Have your brand sponsor the podcast or an episode. Help BrownTown continue to integrate and amplify community voices around various political, cultural, and everyday topics to analyze, discuss, and further call to action holistic solutions and dialogue around its many themes in a participatory nature. Drop us a line if you would like to explore a more creative, equitable, and holistic world with us. #BnBLive
The Collective Freedom Project
Episodes 71-74
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Summer 2021 - BrownTown is honored to bring you the Collective Freedom Project four-part series! The podcast extension of the movement media and resource hub highlights grassroots efforts in Chicago, Atlanta, Texas, and California, where activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms. In this series, BrownTown and organizers across the U.S. discuss fighting for a world away from police and ICE violence and towards a world with life-affirming institutions, respect for our natural environments, collective freedom and liberation. Sponsored by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) and the Four Freedoms Fund (FFF).
"We can’t reverse environmental injustices unless we’re looking at the root cause. And we’re becoming more and more convinced—I’m becoming more and more convinced that the root causes of environmental injustices is white supremacy and the militarism, capitalism, [and] consumerism that informs white supremacy..."
BRIAN SAUDER | President & Executive Director, Faith in Place
Our Storytellers
Michael Penny |
Kensley "Sonny" Hawkins |
Anthony Jones |
Renaldo Hudson |
SoapBox Action Works
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2 0 2 1
After five months of intentional hibernation for rest and restoration, the #DefundCPD campaign started actively organizing again in April 2021. Coming off a difficult March and April, still surviving a pandemic and experiencing several high-profile police killings in Chicago, the campaign jumped off with the Mourn the Dead, Fight Like Hell for the Living action and multiple efforts leading into the summer.
Demands
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Mourn the Dead, Fight Like Hell for the LivingMay 29, 2021 -- Some sights and sounds from the first public #DefundCPD action out of hibernation “Honor the Dead, Fight like Hell for the Living” action. Shoutout to everyone who has been mourning and resisting this past year. We can’t change the past but we can make the future, and that starts now.
Footage by Caullen Hudson; Edit by Kelly Riley. |
Juneteenth 2021
This Juneteenth, #DefundCPD demonstrated that abolition is presence by holding it down at a block party with education, creativity, care, and celebration. In a world without police, how do we show up for each other? What does community care look like everyday? Below is a glimpse, for more, join the campaign. We do this 'til we free us.
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Edited by James Edward Murray, Footage by James Edward Murray & Caullen Hudson, Field Direction by David A. Moran & Caullen Hudson
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Footage by Caullen Hudson, Edited by Kelly Riley
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Stop ShotSpotterShotSpotter is a useless, expensive, racist audio surveillance technology used by the Chicago Police Department to further police and surveil mostly Black and Latinx communities. It fails to perform its stated purpose of reducing gun violence, and instead has cost Chicago $33 million, 20,000+ dead-end CPD deployments a year, and heightened and even fatal police presence in Chicago’s Black & Latinx neighborhoods.
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Out of the Box:
A SoapBox Celebration & Showcase
A SoapBox Celebration & Showcase
FEBRUARY 24, 2018
Held on February 24, 2018, Out of the Box was a night of art, film, live performances, radical thought, and connection amongst Chicago's hard-working filmmakers, creatives, activists, and social entrepreneurs. This event exhibited SoapBox’s past and recent projects as well as raised funds to continue our work and develop our infrastructure.
In the wake of the closures of independent journalism outlets and public schools, defunding of social services, and the perpetuation of false narratives that are consistently harming the most marginalized, we are reminded of the importance of sustaining this work in our beloved city. Out of the Box was not just about us. Over the years, we have collaborated and fostered relationships with many individuals and organizations in the Chicago film, journalism, music, and activist scenes. The event hosted several affiliates, who shared their work in their various forms and brought awareness to their campaigns. Together, we fostered a community of discussion, education, excitement, and, most importantly, action. At the intersection of social justice, creativity, and technology, Out of the Box channeled a radical imagination in using creative narratives to speak truth to power—a framework that is more crucial than ever.
Featuring Performers: Kuumba Lynx, Jacob Victorine, Rio Mutasim, Michael the Jung, and TWEAK'G
Partnering Organizations: Culture, For the People Artists Collective, TRAP House Chicago, American Friends Service Committee - Chicago, and #NoCopAcademy
#OutOfTheBox18
We are engaging organizers/activists, the newly politicized, and the average media consumer with particular attention to BIPOC communities and youth.
Movement-based organizers and activists’ work is reflected and amplified in our projects and platforms. Our relationships to organizations and individuals committed to racial, economic, and social justice are centered from inception to completion. We use film and other media to harness the power of grassroots work and present it in an accessible, digestible, and entertaining fashion to our constituency and beyond. This supports the journey of the newly politicized to understand the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness and other -isms. Whether by never experiencing the impacts of these systems directly or not having access to the political education to name, frame, and change them, our work engages seasoned organizers, newcomers to the struggle, as well as more everyday film/media consumers.
The participatory nature of producing our work holds us accountable to those most impacted. We create democratic structures and build relationships throughout our work in order to accurately reflect stories and present authentic narratives. We center those most impacted and visible in our work by sharing agency in its presentation, creation, and production process. Furthermore, through the years SoapBox, as an entity and the people that make it up, have developed and sustained personal and professional relationships within movement spaces. This trusted and fostered camaraderie has been forged through long campaigns, physical protests, mutual aid work, and broader struggles to build people power in Chicago and abroad. This community-based approach and history of struggle holds us accountable and strengthens our work.
Movement-based organizers and activists’ work is reflected and amplified in our projects and platforms. Our relationships to organizations and individuals committed to racial, economic, and social justice are centered from inception to completion. We use film and other media to harness the power of grassroots work and present it in an accessible, digestible, and entertaining fashion to our constituency and beyond. This supports the journey of the newly politicized to understand the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness and other -isms. Whether by never experiencing the impacts of these systems directly or not having access to the political education to name, frame, and change them, our work engages seasoned organizers, newcomers to the struggle, as well as more everyday film/media consumers.
The participatory nature of producing our work holds us accountable to those most impacted. We create democratic structures and build relationships throughout our work in order to accurately reflect stories and present authentic narratives. We center those most impacted and visible in our work by sharing agency in its presentation, creation, and production process. Furthermore, through the years SoapBox, as an entity and the people that make it up, have developed and sustained personal and professional relationships within movement spaces. This trusted and fostered camaraderie has been forged through long campaigns, physical protests, mutual aid work, and broader struggles to build people power in Chicago and abroad. This community-based approach and history of struggle holds us accountable and strengthens our work.
COLLABORATING ORGANIZATIONS INCLUDE
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Juneteenth Freedom Package CollabCelebrate Juneteenth 2021 by snagging a SoapBox and Demand Justice collaborative Freedom Package, which includes
You can purchase the entire package or just the T-shirt separately. Some of the proceeds will go to SoapBox! Only available now until until June 19th! |
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Juneteenth Freedom Package CollaborationCelebrate Juneteenth 2021 by snagging a Freedom Package including SoapBox T-shirt, poster, foam fist, sticker pack, and mask (or just the T-shirt separately) . More in our Store or purchase below!
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Chicago Drill and Activism
What started as a DePaul University graduate-level sociology thesis is now a SoapBox's feature documentary and multi-media, cross-platform project. The original study seeks to understand the creation, meaning, perspectives and potential connections between drill rap music and the resurgence of grassroots activism since the early 2010s. "Chi DNA" features in-depth interviews with drill rappers, other independent artists, and organizers/activists. It situates its findings into a broader theoretical framework and empirical history of systemic inequality and resistance.
Corona Conversations: A Bourbon 'n BrownTown Happy Hour on Instagram Live - Fridays at 6p CST
Tune into SoapBox on Instagram Fridays at 6pm CST for Corona Conversations, where BrownTown will check-in with each other, our community, give thoughts on the coronavirus crisis and its exposure of systemic failures, then get input from you! Tune in, sip somethin’ good, and hang out with the gang! They’ll spend part of the time chopping it up then field questions/comments from folks. Patreon members get first dibs; become a member below! Tag @soapboxpo #BnBLive with questions or comment on a recent post.
Media literacy coupled with complex analysis within the digital space is important in reaching audiences where they are to confront the issues of our time and engage in radical social change and quality entertainment. Watch, listen, read, and interact with us.
Fitness Against Fascism
August 19th, 2018
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November 5th, 2018
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SoapBox and CrossTown Fitness partnered to create these workout fundraiser events pairing an anti-oppressive, liberatory-minded high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout led by SoapBox and CrossTown’s Caullen Hudson and holistically minded yoga session led by Mel Phillips. Participants learn more about SoapBox's work, holistic health and self care, how systems of oppression impact our everyday and how to challenge them, all while getting a well-rounded workout! The events also include post-workout meals and juices from community-minded and community-focused Kitchfix and Eenji Juice as well as discussions lead by SoapBox collaborators such as Judges Matter and American Constitution Society. Participants also received a 14-day unlimited pass to all CrossTown Fitness locations.
