Podcast
Knowledge Gumbo
Hosted by Alicia Thomas · EN
"Empowering Black women through untold stories, inspiring quotes, and actionable insights from history. Join us weekly as we rediscover Black women’s contributions, engage in critical thinking, share a laugh, and inspire community.”
*Knowledge Gumbo* is a soulful blend of wisdom, history, and culture, filtered through the lens of Black women, for Black women, and about Black women. Hosted by Alicia Thomas, a former mechanical engineer turned seeker of untold stories, this podcast dives into powerful quotes, proverbs, and book excerpts—primarily from Black women from maids to renowned thought leaders—and unpacks their meaning with humor, insight, and a touch of reflection.
From thought-provoking sayings to timeless words of wisdom, every episode brings history to life—not through dates and places, but through voices, stories, and the lessons they leave us. Perfect for Black women from Generation X and more, *Knowledge Gumbo* is a space for learning, laughing, and passing down knowledge to future generations.
Pull up a seat, stir the pot, and let’s share a bowl from the rich mixture of voices and stories of the past to inspire the present.
**New episodes available weekly. Jump in, listen, and share the gumbo with a few friends!**
33episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Toni Tipton-Martin: The Lie Hidden Inside a Compliment
2w ago00:07:12Tap to summarizeToni Tipton-Martin found something buried inside a word that gets used to praise Black women in the kitchen — and once you hear what she found, you cannot unhear it.In this episode of Knowledge Gumbo, host Alicia Thomas sits with a quote from Tipton-Martin's celebrated work and follows one thread of language all the way back to where it started — and what she finds there is not what it looks like on the surface. What sounds like recognition of Black women's culinary gifts turns out to be something else entirely. Something that explains why so much was nearly lost, and why Tipton-Martin's decades of recovery work mattered as much as it did.This one is short. It is also the kind of episode that stays with you.A note for subscribers: Knowledge Gumbo is moving its release day from Mondays to Wednesdays starting July 1st. Subscribe so you do not miss an episode.Key TakeawaysThere is a word Toni Tipton-Martin uses to describe what happened to Black women's culinary expertise — and Alicia Thomas is not sure she fully agrees with it. What she says about that one word, and why, is worth sitting with.Toni Tipton-Martin spent decades building a collection most people never knew existed. What she was really collecting was not cookbooks — and this episode gets at what it actually was.There is a specific reason why calling something "instinct" is dangerous in a way that calling something a "skill" is not. This episode makes that argument clearly, and it lands.The closing question Alicia leaves listeners with is the kind you carry into your next family gathering — and it might change what you say, or do not say, at the table.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome + Show Format[00:58] Toni Tipton-Martin Background[01:42] Unpacking the Quote[02:24] Alicia's Reflection: From Plantation Kitchens to "Instinct"[04:09] Cultural Rescue: The Cookbook Collection[04:37] What Food Preservation Is Really About[06:01] Closing Question[06:22] Announcements + Sign-OffResources and LinksThe Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin — https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292745483/The Knowledge Gumbo Newsletter — https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5James Beard Foundation — Toni Tipton-Martin Lifetime Achievement Award] — https://www.jamesbeard.org/stories/toni-tipton-martin-black-culinary-heritage📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop
Transcribe →Benefiting Myself Too: Melinda Russell and the Cookbook That Almost Disappeared
3w ago00:08:45Tap to summarizeMelinda Russell wrote something down in 1866 that Black women were never supposed to say out loud. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, Alicia Thomas follows one line from Russell's own pen — and what it reveals about survival, knowledge, and the stories we're still not telling about ourselves.You have not heard this story. And once you do, you'll understand why it matters right now.Key TakeawaysMelinda Russell said something in the first pages of her cookbook that most Black women in 1866 would never have dared to put in writing. Alicia Thomas unpacks why that honesty was its own kind of power.There is a reason Melinda Russell's name disappeared from history for over a century — and a reason it came back. Both parts of that story say something about whose knowledge gets preserved and whose gets lost.Alicia Thomas makes this personal. This episode will leave you sitting with a question about your own knowledge, your own stories, and what you are waiting for.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and Intro[00:31] Today's Quote[00:44] Who Was Melinda Russell?[01:16] Robbed and Rebuilt[01:52] Reflection: Her Words[03:40] Writing What You Know[04:33] The Fire and the One Copy[05:26] Rediscovery and Republication[06:23] Documentation as Love[07:56] Closing Question📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop
Transcribe →Edna Lewis: When Daily Cooking Becomes an Act of Preservation
4w ago00:06:20Tap to summarizeEdna Lewis spent her entire life trying to recapture the flavors of her childhood in Freetown, Virginia, and in doing so she preserved something far greater than recipes. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, we sit with her words about the distance between a dish and the world it came from.Born in 1916 in Freetown, a community founded by formerly enslaved people, Lewis became one of the most celebrated food writers of the 20th century. Her 1976 book, The Taste of Country Cooking, reshaped how America understood Southern food and Black culinary tradition.Key TakeawaysEdna Lewis understood food as rooted in land, season, and intergenerational care — and writing it all down was itself an act of cultural preservation.The "flavor loss" she described was not a failure of technique but the natural distance from the living relationships, seasons, and soil that produced the original taste.A recipe is a map, but the territory it describes is a time and place that cannot always be fully reconstructed.She cooked at Cafe Nicholson in New York and brought Freetown into that kitchen every time, keeping tradition the way a living thing is kept.In This Episode[00:00] Intro[00:27] Quote[00:46] Who was Edna Lewis[01:12] Flavor loss and Freetown[02:01] Her lifelong effort[02:52] Food and the earth[03:24] Recipe as map[04:12] Local to national[04:41] The value of documenting[05:31] Closing question[05:52] Outro📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop
Transcribe →She Patented Sight. Then Gave It Away.
May 2500:07:30Tap to summarizeDr. Patricia Bath, the first Black woman to patent a medical device in America, believed that geography and income should never determine whether someone can see. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, Alicia Thomas reflects on Bath's quote — "The ability to restore sight is the ultimate reward" — and what it means to return something that should never have been taken away.Bath's journey from Harlem Hospital to a historic patent is also a story about a system that failed Black patients, and one woman who refused to wait for it to change.Key TakeawaysThe blindness disparity Dr. Bath documented at Harlem Hospital was not biological — it was the result of a medical system that denied Black patients equal access to preventative care.Rather than waiting for that system to change, Bath built an alternative through community ophthalmology: trained volunteers, outreach programs, and global humanitarian missions rooted in the belief that eyesight is a basic human right.Bath's choice of the word "restore" — not create or generate — points to something that already belonged to people and had been taken from them.The laserphaco probe could have stayed in elite hospitals. Instead, Bath took it on humanitarian missions to North Africa and championed telemedicine decades before it was mainstream.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome to Knowledge Gumbo[00:32] Today's Quote — Dr. Patricia Bath[00:43] Who Was Dr. Patricia Bath? — Background and History[01:56] Alicia's Reflection — The Word "Restore"[04:33] Community Ophthalmology and the Laserphaco Probe[06:40] The Carry Question for the Week[07:02] Closing📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →Wangari Maathai: You Can't Protect What You Don't Own
May 1800:05:45Tap to summarizeWangari Maathai believed you cannot protect the environment unless people are empowered to claim it as their own. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, host Alicia Thomas reflects on that idea and what it demands of us today. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, mobilized women across Kenya to plant more than 50 million trees, and became the first African woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Her work was climate justice before the term existed, and her question still stands: what are you not yet claiming as your own?Key TakeawaysMaathai taught that empowerment and information together are the foundation of real environmental protection, and that ownership must come before action can follow. The women of the Green Belt Movement were practicing climate justice long before that framework had a name, reclaiming authority over their land, water, and futures. The relationship between Black women and land is a diaspora-wide story, from colonial Africa to redlined American cities, and Maathai's framework speaks directly to it.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome to Knowledge Gumbo[00:27] The Quote: Wangari Maathai on empowerment and environment[00:51] Historical Context: Who was Wangari Maathai?[01:57] Reflection: Ownership must come before action[03:16] Climate Justice and the Green Belt Movement[04:10] The Diaspora Connection: Black women and land[04:44] Closing Question: What are you not yet claiming as your own?[05:15] OutroResources and LinksThe Knowledge Gumbo Newsletter — https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Green Belt Movement (Official Site) — https://www.greenbeltmovement.orgWangari Maathai Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech — https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2004/maathai/lecture/📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →Every GPS Signal Passes Through Her Work
May 1100:07:33Tap to summarizeDr. Gladys West is the mathematician whose calculations made GPS possible — and most people have never heard her name. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, host Alicia Thomas sits with one of Dr. West's most quietly powerful quotes and explores what it means to do work that matters without waiting for the world to notice.Dr. West spent 42 years as one of the only Black women at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia, building the precise mathematical models of the Earth's shape that satellite navigation still depends on today. Her most consequential work was done in the 1970s and 80s. She was not recognized for it until 2018. Alicia unpacks why that gap was no accident, and what Dr. West's story shares with other Black women whose contributions were buried — and what it means for us to name them now.Key TakeawaysPrecision is a form of devotion. Dr. West's Gladys West GPS legacy was built not on ambition for recognition, but on a daily commitment to getting the numbers right — a standard that left no room for error and no space for giving up.Erasure is a pattern, not an exception. Dr. West's story sits alongside Alice Ball, Dorothy Lavinia Brown, and the hidden figures at NASA as part of a documented pattern: Black women building the systems the world relies on while credit goes elsewhere.Lifelong learning is its own kind of defiance. After surviving two strokes, Dr. West completed her PhD at 70 and kept speaking to students about mathematics and possibility until her passing in January 2026.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and episode format[00:21] Dr. West's quote[00:44] Background: From sharecropper's daughter to mathematician[01:28] Career beginnings and returning to school for her master's[01:56] Hired at the Naval Surface Warfare Center — one of four Black employees[02:03] 42 years building the mathematical models behind GPS[02:07] Reflection: What does it mean to get it "right"?[03:07] The Earth is not a simple shape — what GPS actually requires[03:53] The faithfulness of showing up for 42 years[04:45] Recognized in 2018 — and why the delay was no accident[05:07] The pattern: Hidden figures, Alice Ball, Dorothy Lavinia Brown[05:43] PhD at 70 after two strokes[06:06] Dr. West's passing in January 2026 and the precision she left behind[06:37] Closing question: What are you doing with that kind of commitment?📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →The Foundation She Laid Before the Rest Showed Up
May 400:06:44Tap to summarizeDr. Jane Cooke Wright helped build modern cancer medicine from a Harlem hospital, and most people have never heard her name. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, host Alicia Thomas sits with Dr. Wright's founding vision for clinical oncology and asks what it means to create infrastructure, not just outcomes. Dr. Wright was born in 1919 into a family of healers. Her grandfather had graduated from medical school after being born into slavery. Her father was among the first Black graduates of Harvard Medical School. In 1949, she joined him at the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation, testing drug combinations on cancer cells at a time when most physicians believed chemotherapy was not worth pursuing. When her father died in 1952, she took over at 33. By 1964, she was the only woman and only Black physician among the seven founders of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.Her featured quote names three founding goals: standards, knowledge, and dissemination. Alicia reflects on what those three words meant personally and what they reveal about Dr. Wright's larger vision for medicine, access, and community.Key TakeawaysDr. Jane Cooke Wright understood that representation in medical leadership was not just a symbolic concern but a direct care problem. When Black physicians and women were absent from shaping research, the treatments that reached Black communities were narrower, slower, and less precise.Dr. Wright's approach to racial health disparities was to build the infrastructure that could close the gap. Her chemotherapy protocols were rigorous enough to become global standards, and the field she co-founded, clinical oncology, now touches millions of patients every year.The three-part framework Dr. Wright articulated as founding goals — standards, knowledge, and dissemination — offers a personal and professional lens. Alicia applies each to her own life: consistency regardless of circumstance, lifelong learning, and the commitment to share what you know with those who need it.The work Dr. Wright named as a founding goal remains unfinished. Black Americans are still diagnosed with many cancers at later stages and are still more likely to die from those cancers. Her vision was not just historical; it is a living charge.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and show introduction[00:27] Dr. Jane Cooke Wright's featured quote[00:51] Background: A family of healers and the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation[01:34] Dr. Wright takes over the Foundation at 33 and co-founds ASCO in 1964[01:53] Alicia's personal reflection: standards, knowledge, dissemination[03:26] The systemic context: medical knowledge, Black patients, and access to care[04:12] Dr. Wright's response to racial health disparities: building infrastructure[05:21] The global reach of her chemotherapy protocols[05:41] The work that remains: cancer disparities today[06:09] Closing question: Where can you apply standards, knowledge, and dissemination?[06:25] Outro📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →Own the Signal, Not Just the Sound
Apr 2700:09:32Tap to summarizeVisibility without power is just decoration — and Melissa Harris-Perry built a career proving exactly that. This episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast opens with one of her most clarifying insights: being seen is not the same as being heard, and being heard is not the same as having power. For Black women navigating media, content creation, and public life, that distinction is everything.When Melissa Harris-Perry walked off the set of her MSNBC weekend show in 2016, it was not a moment of defeat. It was a demonstration of what power actually looks like when you refuse to perform visibility on someone else's terms. Alicia traces the line from that moment to a longer tradition of Black women who built what they needed rather than waiting to be given access: Ida B. Wells with her own press, Oprah Winfrey building OWN, Issa Rae funding her own work before the networks arrived.The episode also turns the lens on today's digital landscape, where social media creates the feeling of reach without the reality of ownership. Followers are not infrastructure. Algorithms are not yours. The real power move is building something that outlasts the platforms you use to distribute it.Key TakeawaysBeing seen is not the same as being heard, and being heard is not the same as having power. Melissa Harris-Perry's quote draws a precise distinction that is especially important for Black women in media, where visibility is often offered as a substitute for real authority and control.Borrowed platforms can be taken away. Harris-Perry's exit from MSNBC illustrates what happens when your platform belongs to someone else. The same principle applies in the digital age: follower lists, algorithm reach, and social media presence are not owned assets.The most durable Black women media makers throughout history eventually stopped borrowing someone else's infrastructure. From Ida B. Wells owning her own press to Oprah Winfrey building OWN to Issa Rae self-funding before Hollywood called, the pattern of Black women and media ownership is long and intentional.The real digital power move is building something that outlasts the platforms you use to distribute it. A newsletter, a podcast with an RSS feed, a community that follows you across platforms rather than being anchored to one of them. These are the tools of durable influence.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and introduction[00:29] Today's quote: Melissa Harris-Perry[00:43] Who is Melissa Harris-Perry? Context and background[02:02] Being seen is not the same as being heard[02:49] Being heard is not the same as having power[03:43] What power actually means: ownership and control[04:59] What Harris-Perry did after leaving MSNBC[06:03] The longer tradition: Ida B. Wells, Oprah, Issa Rae[07:00] Social media and the illusion of ownership[07:54] The real digital power move: newsletters, podcasts, RSS[08:32] Closing question and outro📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →She Filmed What History Tried to Forget
Apr 2000:08:31Tap to summarizeKathleen Collins directed one of the most important films in Black cinema history in 1982 — and almost no one saw it for decades. This episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast explores the life and vision of Kathleen Collins, filmmaker, playwright, and screenwriter, whose feature film Losing Ground dared to show the interior life of a Black woman on her own terms. Collins believed film should illuminate what life feels like from the inside — not from the outside looking in, not through the lens of struggle or spectacle, but from the inside of a person living it. Her film was sharp, literary, and deeply honest. It was also blocked by distribution systems that didn't know what to do with a story so layered about a Black woman in a complicated marriage. She died of breast cancer in 1988 at just 46. Her daughter rescued the film. And when critics finally saw it, they asked: why didn't we know about this?This episode holds space for that question — and for the broader pattern it reveals about whose complexity is considered worth an audience's time.Alicia Thomas reflects on what Collins' quote reveals about the interior life of Black women who are publicly together but privately falling apart, the myth of the strong Black woman, and how the very survival skill of performing competence can make you invisible to the people closest to you.Key TakeawaysCollins' 1982 film Losing Ground is a landmark of Black women's filmmaking — a nuanced interior portrait of a Black female philosophy professor navigating a quietly suffocating marriage, told with literary precision and emotional honesty rarely given to Black women's stories on screen.The phrase "illuminate from the inside" is a powerful reframe for what storytelling can be. Collins wasn't interested in documentation or representation as performance. She wanted film to function like light — shining on the interior experience of a person living a life, not being observed from the outside.The disappearance of Losing Ground was not accidental. Distribution systems blocked the film because it did not fit the templates gatekeepers had for Black women's stories. This pattern extends across film, music, and literature, and reflects a systematic effort to control whose complexity is considered worthy of an audience.The internet has created genuine openings to circumvent those gatekeepers, and the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast is part of that work — sharing the stories of Black women whose lives and ideas have gone unrecognized for too long.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and show format[00:28] Today's quote: Kathleen Collins[00:46] Who was Kathleen Collins? Background and Losing Ground[01:44] Reflection: What "illuminate from the inside" really means[02:50] The word "illuminate" — light, truth, and what film can do[03:30] The interior life of Black women and the strong Black woman myth[04:13] Why the film disappeared: gatekeepers and distribution[05:46] A broader pattern: Black women filmmakers and the industry[06:56] Closing question for the week[07:22] Knowledge Gumbo Newsletter — recording and documenting your own story[07:56] Closing📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →Credibility Is Not Given, It Is Claimed
Apr 1300:07:26Tap to summarizeCharlene Hunter-Gault never felt she had to prove herself. She felt she had to be herself. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, host Alicia Thomas reflects on that quiet but radical distinction and what it means for Black women who are constantly asked to justify their presence in rooms they have every right to occupy.Hunter-Gault made history in 1961 when she and Hamilton Holmes became the first Black students to desegregate the University of Georgia, a moment met with riots and violence. She went on to become a PBS NewsHour correspondent and bureau chief, a CNN bureau chief in South Africa during the transition from apartheid, and a Peabody Award-winning journalist with a career spanning more than five decades. She did not build that record by working in response to someone else's doubt. She built it from a foundation of knowing she belonged.This episode asks you to examine the difference between proving yourself and being yourself, and how your answer shapes what you will and will not accept from the rooms you walk into.Key TakeawaysProving yourself and being yourself can look identical on the surface, but they begin in entirely different places. When you operate from the position of having to prove yourself, you have already accepted someone else's premise that your presence requires justification. That starting point keeps Black women on the defensive, forever responding to someone else's doubt rather than moving from their own authority.Charlene Hunter-Gault modeled a different way of moving through the world. Her self-identification as a journalist, not as a trailblazer or an exception, reflects a form of self-definition that refused to let the credibility gap have the final word on her worth or her work.The credibility gap Black women face in public-facing professions is real and unearned. The standard is constantly shifted to justify disrespect and mistreatment. Yet generation after generation of Black women journalists including Ethel Payne, Gwen Ifill, Farai Chideya, April Ryan, and Joy Reid have built careers of extraordinary distinction anyway.How you see yourself determines what you will and will not accept from the rooms you walk into. Self-knowledge is not arrogance. It is the foundation from which excellent work and unshakeable presence are built.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and introduction[00:30] The quote: Charlene Hunter-Gault[00:45] Context: Who was Charlene Hunter-Gault?[01:41] Reflection: Proving yourself vs. being yourself[03:56] Why this quote is low-key radical[05:09] The credibility gap in broadcast journalism[05:52] The lineage: Ethel Payne, Gwen Ifill, and beyond[06:30] Closing question to carry with you📱 CONNECT:YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@aliciatsaysNewsletter: https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciatsays/ Merch: https://aliciatsays.shop/
Transcribe →