New ‘Black Austin Matters’ season features WNBA legend, ‘America’s Got Talent’ semifinalist and more

Black Austin Matters is a podcast featuring voices shaping the culture and community of Austin. Now in its fourth season, the podcast is poised to feature recording artist and “America’s Got Talent” semifinalist, Mama Duke, Austin native and civic leader, Eric Byrd, and Austin’s poet laureate, Zell Miller III.

The first episode is out now and features entrepreneur, author, and Longhorn legend, Fran Harris, who helped lead Texas women’s basketball to its first and only NCAA championship in 1986.

Black Austin Matters hosts Lisa B. Thompson and Richard J. Reddick joined the Standard for an interview. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: Lisa, is it true that Black Austin Matters became a show because of a tweet?

Lisa B. Thompson: Absolutely, it was a tweet by my co-host and co-producer. Richard J. Reddick tweeted the day that “Black Austin Matters” was painted downtown, and he said we should have a conversation about that.

He tagged a bunch of people and it sat there all day. Nobody responded. I saw it in the morning and I said — I had a lot going on, long story — but I came back to it in evening and I said, “yes, we should,” and I tagged KUT and heard from Matt Largey and the rest is history.

Richard J. Reddick: Yeah, Matt moved very quickly on that. That was impressive speed.

Lisa B. Thompson: Our first producer saw what we had in mind and I remember telling Rich, “let me do the talking.”

Richard J. Reddick: She shut me up. She said “don’t say anything. I got this.”

Next thing I know, we walked out of there with equipment and microphones and headsets and like “how do you do a podcast? How’s that work?”

Lisa B. Thompson: We’ll find out later. People say, “what’s the podcast about?” And I say, “it’s about your neighbors and they happen to be Black.”

You officially launched the podcast in 2022. And this gets to your point, Lisa, your first episode featured trailblazing former Texas state Rep. Wilhelmina Delco and pioneering educator Exaltin Alfonso Delco Jr.

Rick, how important is it for you to continue facilitating these conversations and ensuring voices like theirs are not just shared, but remembered with your listeners?

Richard J. Reddick: Absolutely. I mean, I think we had a conversation about who we should talk to first.

So it’s got to be the Delcos. It really was important for us to sort of tap into the foundational folks who really helped create what we consider to be Black Austin in a lot of ways. And since then, we’ve really thought about it as having those folks in the conversation, but also having folks who, to Lisa’s point, are your neighbors.

So it is from the lofty to the quotidian. You know, we have all these different folks in our conversations and I just love hearing people tell us about the interviews they loved, because it’s never always the one you think it is.

Oh, we talked to a prominent Austinite who did X, Y, and Z. “I like that person. That was great. But the one I liked was the person who did this.” And you’re like, wow, I wouldn’t have made that connection.

So we have a very eclectic mix of interviewees. So it’s always exciting to me to hear people talk about what they enjoy.

How do you decide who to highlight? I mean, the Delcos — super obvious for Black Austin Matters, but how do you find these lesser-known voices?

Lisa B. Thompson: Oh, my goodness. Rich and I just sometimes find somebody and then text each other: “Hey, I met this person. I think we should have them on.”

We also try to think about having a balance of, like he said, this kind of eclectic mix, but it really should be a broad swath of Black life — from age to sexuality to how long people have lived in Austin.

And I love when he comes up with somebody and I’m like, “hmm, I’m not sure about that.” And then they come in and I’m like, “this is my favorite interview. This is the best interview we ever had.” I love it.

Richard J. Reddick: You got to trust your co-host. Yeah.

Lisa B. Thompson: Yes, yes, and I think that he probably has the same thing, like “who’s this person?”

Richard J. Reddick: Yeah, so I think Lisa comes from the world of the arts and so that’s definitely a place that I need more engagement in and I’m always blown away with the talent and just the spark that those folks bring.

Well, you’ve mentioned several episodes. You’re now four seasons in.

I’m not going to make you pick a very favorite, but Rich, can you talk about some of the moments that you’ve really enjoyed working on this podcast?

Richard J. Reddick: Changes from day to day. I think when we were with the Delcos, there was a moment, we kind of looked at each other and like, “hey, this is working.” Like we don’t know what we’re doing, but it’s working.

And then as recently as meeting with Fran Harris — and Fran is my good buddy, my fellow distinguished alumnus. And Fran is a character.

And in fact, we had this conversation recently about we should do a BAM after the show because a lot of times we start a conversation and we stop because we ran out of tape or [engineer] Jake’s tired or [producer] Miles is like “that’s enough.” But what’s really cool about it is a lot times we have a conversation that continues and it’s like “wow, we should capture that.

So, you know, we percolate these ideas so maybe in season five it’ll be like a “BAM After Dark.”

Lisa, what would you add what sticks out to you?

Lisa B. Thompson: What sticks out to me is the fact that it’s beyond us.

I think for me, after the meeting with the Delcos and having them talk to us, I realized we are capturing a moment in time in this city. And that has been really awe-inspiring.

Rich, I guess looking ahead, what do you see for the future of Black Austin Matters?

Richard J. Reddick: There’s so much and literally after every interview, after every season, we all sit together and think about what’s next.

So for instance, this season, we’re gonna have reels and video with our shows, which we’ve never done before. And that’s Lisa’s idea, you know, she’s the artist. She’s like, “hey, we should do this.” And it looks really great. It looks awesome.

So I really do think we’ve been talking about moving it forward for publications and things that we should be doing.

You know, our day jobs — our day hustle — is being academics. And this is an academic archiving project, which we’ve been so fortunate to have the opportunity to do.

And so it would be a hugely important thing for us to think about making this into academic work that’s accessible, because the beauty of this, I think for us as scholars, is a lot of times our work is within the walls at the academy. And this has been such a wonderful community engagement.

We’re just blessed to be the people behind the microphones, but honestly, it’s true, you will walk around and people will come up to you and they’ll say, “I recognize your voice” or they’ll come to you or they will email us and say, “this is a great interview you did.” “Well, why haven’t you interviewed this person?”

And a lot of times it’s like, give us time, you know? Season eight, season 25, we’ll get to it, but we will definitely do that. But as Lisa said, just the variety of experiences in this city and as somebody who is a semi-Austinite in the sense that I went to high school here — I wasn’t born here, but I’ve been in for a long time — I am just very proud of the folks that we have in our community who sometimes are just doing their day to day and not thinking about and they’re surprised sometimes like, “why did you ask to come talk to me?”

And it’s really because you’re our neighbor. We want to know what you’re doing. And we feel uplifted having those conversations with our colleagues and our friends.

Lisa B. Thompson: What’s been remarkable is also, as an academic who’s kind of a senior scholar at this point, is that you rarely find new collaborations at this stage of one’s career.

We’ve found this way to work together. And I’ve always known that he’s a genius and it’s wonderful to be able to be in such a partnership on this project, and thank goodness for the tweet!

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