Narratives, Movements, and the Future We Build
Sonali Kolhatkar; award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and movement storyteller
Learn More About Season 5Narratives, Movements, and the Future We Build
Sonali Kolhatkar; award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and movement storyteller
Sonali Kolhatkar; award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and movement storyteller
In the second episode of Season 5 of Conversations from the Frontlines, Liberty Hill President & CEO Shane Murphy Goldsmith sits down with award-winning journalist, author, broadcaster, and movement storyteller Sonali Kolhatkar for a powerful conversation about narrative, media, and social change.
How do we move from dominant narratives of fear and division to stories rooted in power, resilience, and possibility?
Throughout our history, Liberty Hill has stood alongside movements that many once saw as impossible or improbable. In this episode, Shane and Sonali explore how people power reshapes public understanding, why storytelling matters in the fight for justice, and what today’s movements can teach us about resilience, imagination, and building a more inclusive future.
Sonali’s work, including her book Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice and her long-running show Rising Up with Sonali, has elevated the voices of frontline communities, grassroots organizers, and advocates working to create change. As Liberty Hill marks 50 years of movement building, this conversation reminds us that changing the future also requires changing the stories we tell about what is possible.
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Meet our Guest
Sonali Kolhatkar
Award winning journalist, broadcaster, writer, and author, Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host, and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali which airs as a radio program on KPFK, KPFA, and dozens of community radio stations around the U.S. and as a TV show on Free Speech TV, and a podcast on Spotify and iTunes. She is the author of Breaking ICE: Community Defense Against State Terror and MAGA Fascism (Seven Stories, 2026), Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World is Possible (Seven Stories, 2025), and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights, 2023). Her first book, co-authored with James Ingalls, is Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2006, Seven Stories).
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Narratives, Movements, and the Future We Build
Sonali Kolhatkar