Tagged: SOT Meet Series

Darlene Nicgorski was a nun when she was convicted of conspiracy and faced a 25-year prison term in the 1980s for her work helping Central American refugees. She didn’t end up having to serve that term, but her work in the so-called Sanctuary Movement made her the poster child of immigrant activism in the 1980s.

When Pam Spaulding first got into publishing, she used an X-Acto knife and cardboard. She stayed in the field by learning how to use a computer. And now her blog — Pam’s House Blend — is a popular activist website for gay rights.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Pam Spaulding about her life, work and gay rights activism.

Darlene Nicgorski was a nun serving in Los Amates, Guatemala in 1981 when her pastor was assassinated miles away. That early experience helped shape her decision to help Central American refugees seeking shelter in the United States. For her efforts, Nicgorski would eventually be convicted of conspiracy and face a 25-year prison sentence. She has since left the convent and settled in Chapel Hill. Host Frank Stasio talks to former nun and activist Darlene Nicgorski.

Medical decisions are fraught with emotion and often have drastic impacts, yet we leave much of the choice in the hands of the doctors. They have been to medical school, after all. But Dr. Peter Ubel thinks the medical establishment has got it all wrong. Patients need way more participation in their medical decisions, and doctors should not dictate treatments. He explores this issue as well as others in his new book, “Critical Decisions: How You and Your Doctor Can Make the Right Decisions Together” (HarperOne/2012).

Legend has it that Baldemar Velasquez led his first fight for migrant farmworkers’ rights at the age of 12. He started working in the fields at 4 years old and soon became a self-taught scholar of social justice. Today, Velasquez is the founder and President of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a labor union that has battled against unfair wages and mistreatment of migrant workers since 1967. FLOC has a headquarters in North Carolina where Velasquez regularly rallies for better conditions for local laborers.