In this episode, we're joined by Alan Jenkins, civil rights lawyer, former Ford foundation program director, Harvard Law School professor, and now comic book author, for a wide ranging conversation about story making and telling as a tool for social change. From Supreme Court litigation to graphic novels, Alan Jenkins traces how law, narrative, and culture intersect when democracy is at stake.

So in our conversation, we explore three big ideas I think matter a lot right now:

1. First, why is story inseparable from power?And how law, policy, and culture work together, whether we acknowledge it or not, to shape public belief and behavior.
2. Next, how popular culture and art have historically been used to confront authoritarianism. From Superman and Captain America to global protest movements that borrow symbol, humor, and myth.
3. And finally, what hybrid 21st century leadership looks like and why flexibility, empathy, and imagination may be as important as specialized expertise in this moment.

Bill Cleveland

Host of ART IS CHANGE and founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.

Alan Jenkins

Harvard Law School professor; former civil rights and DOJ lawyer; former Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation; co-author of 1/6: The Graphic Novel.

Anthony S. Fauci

Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; referenced in discussion of ACT UP and activist pressure shaping public institutions.

Charles Lindbergh

Aviator and political figure cited in discussion of American isolationism and authoritarian sympathies prior to World War II.

Pablo Picasso

Artist whose painting Guernica is referenced as a defining cultural response to fascist violence.

Harvard Law School

Institution where Alan Jenkins teaches courses on civil rights law, narrative, and Supreme Court jurisprudence.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Civil rights organization where Jenkins worked early in his legal career.

United States Department of Justice

Referenced in connection with Jenkins’s Supreme Court litigation experience.

Ford Foundation

Global philanthropy where Jenkins served as Director of Human Rights.

Pop Culture...

In this episode of ART IS CHANGE, Bill Cleveland shares next chapter in the continuing Weather Report, (now called the Arts Freedom Weather Report) Rather than chasing single headlines or isolated outrages, this episode steps back to examine the cultural climate shaping 2026: how small policy shifts stack up, how institutions quietly recalibrate under authoritarian pressure, and how artists and cultural organizations are responding in real time.

In this show, we explore three critical dynamics shaping the arts and democracy right now:

1. How culture is being strategically targeted and weaponized — through funding shifts, legal pressure, and narrative control.
2. What’s actually happening on the ground at the NEA, in public media, museums, universities, and courts.
3. How artists and organizers are responding with preparation, creativity, and discipline, treating resistance as a learned practice rather than a spontaneous reaction.

Listen in as we establish a cultural baseline for 2026 — one we’ll return to again and again — and map the early warning signs, fault lines, and sources of strength shaping the struggle for artistic freedom and democratic life.

Bill Cleveland

Host of ART IS CHANGE and founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.

Renee Nicole Goode

Minneapolis poet, mother, and community member whose work and life are honored at the close of the episode. (Minnesota Public Radio)

Sonia De Los Santos

Singer-songwriter and educator who stepped away from a Kennedy Center performance, citing concerns that the space no longer felt welcoming.

Stephen Schwartz

Composer of Wicked who withdrew from a Kennedy Center gala in protest of politicization.

Béla Fleck

Banjo innovator who canceled Kennedy Center appearances rather than participate in a politicized cultural space.

Chuck Redd

Jazz vibraphonist and bandleader who canceled his long-running Kennedy Center Christmas Eve jam.

The Cookers

Jazz ensemble that canceled its New Year’s Eve engagement at the Kennedy Center.

Wayne Tucker

Trumpeter and composer who withdrew from Kennedy Center programming.

Doug...

In this episode, Bill Cleveland sits down with theater director Emily Hartford and composer–storyteller Ned Hardford to explore Metra: A Climate Revolution with Songs—a nine-episode musical audio drama that reimagines an ancient Greek myth as a near-future climate story.

What starts as a conversation about craft opens into deeper territory: imagination as resistance, music as pedagogy, and why genuinely new stories don’t come from algorithms—they come from people doing long, human work together.

In it, we explore three big questions at the heart of Metra and the moment we’re living in now:

1. How music, story, and the human voice reach places that facts, lectures, and policy arguments can’t
2. What it looks like to tell a climate story without fear-mongering or “disaster porn,”
3. How artists can build work that others can actually use,—turning art-making into cultural infrastructure rather than a one-off production.

Bill Cleveland

Host of Change the Story / Change the World and founder of the Center for the Study of Art & Community.

Emily Hartford

Theater director, writer, and producer; founding member of Flux Theater Ensemble and co-creator of Metra.

Ned Hartford

Composer, songwriter, audio engineer, and co-creator of Metra, focused on musical storytelling and audio drama.

Alan Lomax

Folklorist and field-recording pioneer whose work capturing the emotional power of the human voice is referenced in the episode.

Enoch Rutherford

Old-time banjo player recorded by Alan Lomax in Virginia; referenced through a story of lineage, listening, and musical transmission.

Bill McKibben

Climate activist and author referenced for framing distributed solar power as a metaphor for bottom-up social change.

adrienne maree brown

Writer and activist whose work on emergence and collective power informs Metra’s worldview.

Martin Buber

Philosopher referenced for his concept of relational connection (I–Thou), via the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Flux Theater Ensemble

New York–based theater company where Metra was...