CrimSL Associate Professor Ayobami Laniyonu recently hosted "What was Freedom House?," an episode in the podcast series "Justice Above All" produced by the Legal Defense Fund's Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI). Prof. Laniyonu is currently a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at TMI.
He says the podcast episode is about "the origins of EMS (Emergency Medical Services) and how that history might inform contemporary approaches to creating unarmed, civilian responders to 911 calls for service."
Freedom House was a radical idea that changed emergency response programs and birthed modern-day paramedicine. As we continue to reimagine public safety and confront the role of police in our society, Freedom House's legacy offers a blueprint on what health and safety can look like when people experiencing medical or behavioral distress are met with appropriate care. On this episode Justice Above All, host Dr. Ayobami Laniyonu, Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at TMI, unpacks what advocates of police reform can learn from Freedom House's rise to prominence and its ultimate demise.
Guests:
• Kevin Hazzard, author of American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men who Became America's First Paramedics
• Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Vice President of Social Impact, BET
• Ibram X. Kendi, PhD, Historian and Founding Director of Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research and author of How to be an Anti-Racist
The episode is produced by Keecee DeVenny, Jackie O'Neil, Jakiyah Bradley, and Ayobami Laniyonu and was published on September 14, 2023.