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!**
37episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Sankofa of Science: Dr. Aprille Ericsson
1w ago00:07:45Tap to summarizeDr. Aprille Ericsson calls herself a giant in science, then insists the word only applies because of the people who came before her. She said it at the Library of Congress while accepting recognition for work most people never see: an aerospace engineer who spent more than three decades at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, becoming the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Howard University.Her satellite work has tracked rainfall patterns across three continents and helped chart a telescope's path into deep space, the kind of global reach that rarely announces itself. Underneath that reach sits a symbol older than any spacecraft: the Sankofa bird, feet facing forward, head turned back to retrieve what was left behind. What she asks us to reclaim, and what it costs to carry it forward, unfolds in her own words.Key TakeawaysDr. Aprille Ericsson's engineering doctorate from Howard University made her the first African American woman to hold one, and the first at NASA Goddard. Her work in spacecraft guidance and navigation shaped missions including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Sankofa symbol, a bird that looks back to move forward, frames how she understands innovation as inseparable from memory. Mentorship across the diaspora sits alongside her technical work as part of the same responsibility to the next generation of scientists.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome & Intro[00:29] This Week's Quote[00:55] Meet Dr. Ericsson[01:54] Standing on Shoulders[02:39] Reclaiming the Past[03:16] The Sankofa Symbol[03:56] Innovation Requires Memory[04:21] Underneath, Not Behind[04:43] Global Reach, Local Roots[06:04] Mentoring the Diaspora[06:47] This Week's Carry Question[07:13] Closing Reflection📱 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 Says It Will Always Be There" — Katherine Johnson's NASA Story
2w ago00:07:53Tap to summarizeKatherine Johnson once said we will always have STEM with us, and she wasn't being sentimental about it. She was insisting on it. This week on Knowledge Gumbo, we sit with a mathematician whose orbital calculations were trusted enough that astronaut John Glenn refused to fly until she personally verified them by hand, and with the segregated office where that trust was built.Katherine Johnson worked for years behind a wall, in an office literally labeled "Colored Computers," doing math that outlasted the politics and the visibility around her. We ask what precision costs when the room you're doing it in wasn't built to see you.Key TakeawaysKatherine Johnson's insistence that mathematics is permanent reframes precision itself as a form of power, not just a skill in service of recognition.The Hidden Figures computing unit, including Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, did foundational NASA work that went unrecognized publicly for over sixty years.Katherine Johnson's calculations reached beyond American history into the broader science of orbital mechanics, shaping space exploration that crossed borders long before the world knew her name.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome to the show[00:26] Today's quote[00:55] Who was Katherine Johnson[01:41] Sitting with the plainness[02:44] The Cosby Show and far-reaching math[03:30] Behind the dividing wall[04:29] The quiet erasure[05:39] Diaspora work in mathematics[06:32] Recognition, finally[06:53] Today's carry question[07:14] 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 →The Bridge Built from a Bowl of Gumbo
3w ago00:07:45Tap to summarizeLeah Chase fed the Freedom Riders before they walked into danger, and she called it building big bridges. In this episode of the Knowledge Gumbo Podcast, host Alicia Thomas unpacks one of the most quietly powerful quotes in Black American history: "Food builds big bridges. If you can eat with someone, you can learn from them. And when you learn from someone, you can make big changes."Leah Chase was born in 1923 in Madisonville, Louisiana and spent over 70 years as the chef and owner of Dookie Chase's restaurant in New Orleans. Known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine, she fed civil rights leaders, hosted movement planning in her dining room, and built a celebrated collection of Black art long before the world caught up. Alicia Thomas shares her own memories of meeting Ms. Leah, and the profound feeling of walking into a space where love, history, and Creole cooking had lived side by side for decades.Key TakeawaysFood, in Leah Chase's vision, was never passive; sitting down at a table together was an intentional act of openness that made learning and change possible. Leah Chase's restaurant, Dookie Chase's, was one of the only places in New Orleans where Black and white people could gather, eat together, and organize the civil rights movement in relative safety. Ms. Leah also built one of the most significant private collections of Black art in the South, amplifying Black artists who had not yet found wider recognition. Alicia Thomas invites listeners, particularly Black women, to examine what it feels like to receive care rather than only give it, because nourishment flows in every direction.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome[00:27] The Quote[00:43] Who Was Leah Chase[01:29] What the Quote Really Demands[03:35] A Personal Memory[05:13] Beyond the Kitchen[05:56] This Week's Carry Question[07:12] ClosingResources and LinksKnowledge Gumbo Newsletter — https://tremendous-painter-642.kit.com/305737ceb5Dookie Chase's Restaurant (New Orleans) — https://www.dookychaserestaurants.com/The Historic New Orleans Collection — Leah Chase — https://hnoc.org/publishing/first-draft/poppy-tooker-remembers-leah-chase-recipe-story-and-craziest-dream[Southern Foodways Alliance — Leah Chase] — https://www.southernfoodways.org/?s=leah+chase
Transcribe →Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor: What You Bring to the Kitchen You Serve at the Table
Jun 2200:08:36Tap to summarizeVertamae Smart-Grosvenor said the kitchen does not lie, and once you hear why, you will not season anything the same way again. This episode of Knowledge Gumbo sits with a single line from her 1970 essay "Kitchen Crisis," written in Toni Cade Bambara's landmark anthology The Black Woman. We trace how a Gullah woman from the South Carolina Lowcountry turned cooking into proof of character, and why she insisted the kitchen belonged in the same room as the era's most important Black feminist thought.Key TakeawaysVertamae Smart-Grosvenor argued that creativity, love, and seriousness are not cooking instructions, they are life instructions that simply reveal themselves at the table.Her essay "Kitchen Crisis" appeared in The Black Woman, placing food writing inside the same conversation as the defining Black feminist texts of the 20th century.The episode breaks down why Vertamae's closing line, "it will be good," carries more certainty than people expect from a sentence about cooking.Food writing preserves more than recipes. It preserves the philosophy behind how a life was lived, which is the part most at risk of being lost when no one writes it down.In This Episode[00:00] Welcome and intro[00:22] Today's central quote[00:59] Who was Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor[01:19] The Kitchen Crisis essay origin[01:30] The Black Woman anthology context[01:45] Breaking down the quote's structure[02:05] Life advice, not kitchen advice[02:39] What creativity really means[03:48] Loving and seriousness defined[04:32] The kitchen as proof of attitude[05:18] The kitchen does not lie[05:58] "It will be good" explained[07:28] Question of the week[07:48] Schedule change announcement📱 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 →Toni Tipton-Martin: The Lie Hidden Inside a Compliment
Jun 1500:07:12Tap 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
Jun 800:08:45Tap 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
Jun 100:06:20Tap 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 →