You've been looking at a map that's wrong your entire life not roughly wrong, wrong on purpose, for 500 years, in a way that's made an entire continent look smaller than it actually is. This month, one country stood up and said stop. One other country voted to keep it that way. In this episode of The Color Between the Lines, Esther Dillard hosts solo no guest, just nine good-news stories from the past month that reflect Black achievement, community organizing, and progress the daily headlines tend to leave out.

Esther walks through the UN's 164-to-1 vote to move nations away from the 500-year-old Mercator map, Los Angeles renaming a downtown park for formerly enslaved landowner Bridget "Biddy" Mason, Michigan's tuition-free Reconnect program helping adults finish their degrees, New York's new textured-hair licensing requirement for cosmetology students, a Baltimore pastor turning church land into working farms, a founder's smart handoff at the skincare brand Topicals, Jordyn Woods' homecoming honeymoon across Africa, and a South African recycling program pulling tons of e-waste out of landfills.

New episodes of The Color Between the Lines drop every week on iHeartRadio, the Alive Podcast Network, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Sources referenced: the United Nations General Assembly, the Los Angeles City Council, the Michigan Reconnect program, New York State, the Natural Hairstyle and Braid Coalition, the Black Church Food Security Network, Topicals, and the World Travel Awards Gala.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open

00:18 Intro Nine Wins, No Guest Today

00:38 The Mercator Projection

01:12 UN Votes 164-1 to Move Away From the Map

01:49 Win 2 LA Renames a Park for Biddy Mason

02:54 Win 3 Michigan Reconnect

03:27 Win 4 New York Mandates Textured Hair Education

04:09 The Honest Add A Law Can Mandate Curriculum, Not Skill

05:07 Win 5 Baltimore Pastor Turns Church Lots Into Farms

05:56 Win 6 Topicals Founder Hands Off to a New CEO

06:36 Win 7 Jordyn Woods' Homecoming Honeymoon to Africa

07:14 Win 8 Tanzania Named Africa's Top Tourism Destination

07:31 Win 9 South Africa's E-Waste Recycling Win

07:52 Recap

08:27 Closing

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A construction crew tore up a Houston street, and underneath the asphalt were bricks laid by hand more than 150 years ago by people who had only just been freed from slavery. Three separate times between 2014 and 2016, the city tried to dig them up for good. Three separate times, someone stood in the way including a woman who climbed into the excavation hole herself and refused to move.

In this episode, we trace the story of Freedmen's Town: a community that built its own doctors, schools, and streets by hand when the city refused to, and the century-long fight to keep it from being erased. You'll hear how formerly enslaved Houstonians built this neighborhood after being denied basic infrastructure for six years straight, the three separate attempts to tear up its historic brick streets, why this ground is now part of an active bid to become a United Nations World Heritage Site, and a proposed federal law that would trace a 51-mile trail all the way from the origin of Juneteenth to this exact spot.

Key figures: Rev. Jack Yates, Rutherford B.H. Yates, Catherine Roberts, Doris Ellis Robinson, Ben Hall, Mayor Sylvester Turner.

Sourced from the Houston Press, ABC13 News, the National Register of Historic Places, and congressional testimony from the Houston Freedmen's Town Conservancy.

In partnership with Amplified Voices TV.

For educators: our companion discussion guide and full classroom lesson bundle are available now link in the show notes.

Free resources on Substack, paid bundles on Etsy and TPT.

Subscribe for more of the history that was suppressed, hidden, or simply never told.

Music licensed via Artlist.io

#ERASED #FreedmensTown #HoustonHistory #BlackHistory #UntoldAmericanStory #UNESCO #Juneteenth #BlackHistoryEducation #AmericanHistory #Houston #Emancipation

There's a moment that happens in almost every barbershop that most people never think twice about guards come down, stories come out, and something passes between a father and a child that has nothing to do with hair. Children's author Monica Mikai grew up hearing it in her own father's shop, and turned it into a picture book, Haircut Day with Dad. She joins Esther Dillard to talk through everything that ritual actually teaches kids connection, identity, and gratitude long before they're old enough to notice they're learning it.

In this episode, you'll hear: why Monica Mikai wrote Haircut Day with Dad, inspired by her father's barbershop; how barbershop culture compares to salon culture in her experience; why sound and sensory detail matter in the story; how the ritual helps fathers connect with their sons and builds emotional safety, confidence, and identity; what changed when families cut hair at home during COVID; and why she teaches kids to tip and show gratitude.

Music: Licensed via Artlist.io

Guest links: Haircut Day with Dad (order the book) https://amzn.to/3TdG956. Monica Mikai monicamikai.com. Instagram @monicamikai.

For educators: free discussion resources drop first on Substack at substack.com/@iamestherdillard. Full guides and lesson plans live at ColorBtwLinesMarket on Etsy.

If this conversation moved you, subscribe to The Color Between the Lines wherever you get your podcasts new episodes drop regularly. Your story matters. So does hers.