Alma Robinson: How Do You Build an Art & Social Change Movement That Lasts Decades

Bill Cleveland: 00:00:00

So what does it take to build an art and social change movement that lasts for decades?

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Art is Change, the chronicle of art and social change, where activist artists and cultural organizers share the skills and strategies they need to thrive as creative community leaders. In this episode, we sit down with Alma Robinson, the longtime executive director of California Lawyers for the Arts.

From cultural repatriation to youth advocacy to resurrecting a legendary prison arts program, Alma has been at the heart of a quiet revolution, mobilizing artists and legal advocates to shape a more just, creative society. In it, we'll hear how Alma's early work on cultural restoration and restitution shaped a lifelong commitment to public service.

And learn why creative youth development and artist residencies in prisons are critical tools in community healing. And discover how art, law and grassroots action can work together to preserve heritage, fight displacement, and expand opportunity.

So if you've ever wondered how deep systems change actually happens or how artists and activists can forge powerful, unexpected alliances, this conversation is for you. Part one Whose story is this Anyway? Alma Robinson, welcome to the show. So what's going on with you these days?

Alma Robinson: 00:01:44

It's Monday and this woman sideswiped me and now I've got a new project that I don't need.

Bill Cleveland: 00:01:51

So, yeah, material world does intrude, doesn't it?

Alma Robinson: 00:01:54

Sometimes, yeah, you're minding your own business and then fate comes along and says, no, you're going to pay attention to me. Think you're going to work today. You're not going to get that grant report done. But how are you doing?

Bill Cleveland: 00:02:10

I am doing quite well. Involved in an expanding universe of anti authoritarian and pro democracy work across the country, which is both enlightening and encouraging.

So why don't you introduce yourself and say where you are?

Alma Robinson: 00:02:32

Well, good morning, Bill. I'm Alma Robinson. I'm the executive director of California Lawyers for the Arts, which of course is a statewide organization.

And I'm in San Francisco on the tribal traditional lands of the Ohlone people.

Bill Cleveland: 00:02:50

Yes, and I'm in Alameda, California. And those same Ohlone people had a long presence in this place. And both of us are next to the waters where they used to fish.

So how do you describe your work in the world? Not your job description and not even necessarily all the projects that you have. What's your work in the world?

Alma Robinson: 00:03:19

I like to think of myself as a curious person. I am eager to know people and to understand their circumstances.

And I like to see if I can bring some value to any Given situation, I think of myself as a problem solver, a facilitator, at some points, an instigator, a mediator. And at the end of the day, I hope I'm recognized as having been a good collaborator.

Bill Cleveland: 00:03:51

And I don't know if this has ever been the case, but if you had a handle or a street name, any idea what it would be?

Alma Robinson: 00:04:00

We celebrated our 50th anniversary at California Lawyers for the Arts last fall.

We were founded in: 1974

So we brought up a man who was a successful intern with Bay Area Theater Company as well as his supervisor.

And when the alumni got up and he looked at me and he said, I didn't quite know much about Alma, but now I think she's dope, that for a street name, that's wonderful. That's great.

Bill Cleveland: 00:04:45

I love it. I love it.

Alma Robinson: 00:04:46

I don't know quite what to make of that, but it sounds street to me.

Bill Cleveland: 00:04:50

Oh, it's a superlative. Yes. You can't beat that. No, that says it all. That says it all.

So you mentioned this venerable entity that you have shepherded for a long time, and that is California Lawyers for the Arts. Could you just describe its creation story, but also what it has become?

Alma Robinson: 00:05:16

Area Lawyers for the Arts in: 1974

As I mentioned, we just celebrated our 50th anniversary, and I was so happy that our founding executive director, Hamish Sanderson, was able to join us from England.

He is a practicing barrister in London, and he had come over here as a law student taking some advanced classes at Berkeley and hooked up with our founding president, Jerry Carlin. So from the beginning, advocacy was in the DNA of the organization. They were all about artists rights.

They were working with legislators, notably Senator Alan Cerrotti in Sacramento, state senator from Los Angeles, to change the laws affecting visual artists rights and royalties.

organization. I was hired in: 1980

And a year later, I was asked to become executive director.

Bill Cleveland: 00:06:37

So now this is an organization that has as its DNA, law and human creative processes and products, and how those things mix and match together. How did you go from actually both of US were quite young in those days. So you were a newly minted lawyer. How did you get hooked up with this thing?

Alma Robinson: 00:07:05

Oh, very interesting. I heard about this organization when I was in law school.

I was studying art and the law at Stanford Law School in my last year with John Henry Merriman and Albert Elson. So it was an interdisciplinary course between law and the arts. And they mentioned this thing called bala, which I became curious about.

After law school, I got a fellowship to continue research about the topic that I was assigned to.

During the course, the professors very strategically decided that they would use the students to help do research for their first tome on art and the law. I was assigned to chapter one, which concerned art restitution, international issues of cultural poverty.

I became quite curious about this topic and wrote my first grant proposal to the African Studies committee at Stanford, got a $1,200 fellowship, and while my classmates were studying for the bar and taking the bar, I went off to Europe to see what was going on with the art and artifacts that had been stolen from the African continent and placed indoors in the British Museum. So that was my postgraduate fellowship research project. From Europe, I went to a UNESCO conference in Accra, Ghana.

From there, I was invited to go to Zaire, which is now the Congo, to Nigeria to see what the cultural preservation looked like in those countries. And people were very interested and supportive of my work. I published some articles about it.

Bill Cleveland: 00:08:59

Here's an excerpt from a PBS NewsHour piece on stolen artifacts and museums. A 17th century brass head of a ruler or Oba from the empire of Benin in modern day Nigeria.

A treasure exhibited in a famed American archaeology museum. But note the placard underneath, telling us how this came to be here. After looting by British troops, it was later sold to the museum.

We need to come to terms with both the history and potential of the museum. What stories do museums tell us? And what should they tell us?

One answer comes at the redesigned Africa Galleries at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, known as the Penn Museum. Lead curator Takufu Zubairri. How do we take that activated conversation and transform the narrative in here?

Seize this moment to transform the museum, the narratives in the museum and. And the service we can provide to the community about the national narrative, about the international narrative, about the narrative of humanity.

Alma Robinson: 00:10:14

Had a moment when I was thinking about becoming an expat and staying in London. But I decided, no, I better come home, take the bar, become a real lawyer.

But when I got back, I worked for a while as a program coordinator at Stanford.

Bill Cleveland: 00:10:29

So that British Museum struggle is ongoing.

Alma Robinson: 00:10:34

Absolutely. Yes, it is. And we see news coming out occasionally from France and from New York's Metropolitan Museum.

We're giving back certain pieces to countries in Africa and Asia that were stolen during colonial wars. And it's a never ending story.

Bill Cleveland: 00:10:55

It is. And I think about the moral and ethical dimensions of that conversation.

You know, there's not a lot of debate about what's right and what's wrong in this whole thing, but it's pulling teeth consistently, isn't it?

Alma Robinson: 00:11:07

Yes.

And the dimensions that I learned underneath the issue of stolen property was that you're also ripping people's culture and cultural heritage from them and is part of colonialism. And we still see it everywhere to say, no, this is how you should be.

You have to be like this, you have to think like this, you have to speak this language in order to get along with us, with the majority, with the leadership. And that cultural deprivation continues in many.

Bill Cleveland: 00:11:45

Ways around the world and hegemony.

And I think one of the characteristics, I think, of the west, and particularly the west as it manifests in the United States is that because we're separated by oceans, many Americans imagine that's a story from somewhere else, which obviously is not.

And in many cases, the colonial mandate is coming home to roost in a big way right now in this country in ways that I think many people never imagined was possible, wouldn't you say?

Alma Robinson: 00:12:26

Yes, it's really strange because we thought we had made a certain amount of progress towards diversity and respect for other cultures. And it's really an unfortunate juncture. I think we're going to survive this because at the end of the day, it's not going to make any sense.

Bill Cleveland: 00:12:44

Oh, I love that.

Alma Robinson: 00:12:46

We can't practice one religion, we can't practice one way of thinking.

Bill Cleveland: 00:12:51

That is true. That is true.

And in this tug of war, I often ask the question, when we get traffic jams of conversation and debate, who's actually benefiting from this intransigence? Because most people go, well, this isn't working, so we have to change it.

But actually, every time a system isn't working from one person's perspective, if it persists for long enough, I think you have to realize, oh, it's working for somebody. And often those are folks that are pulling the strings. And this is why systemic change is so much harder.

Part 2 Resurrection so you mentioned advocacy, as in your DNA of California lawyers for the arts.

Your organization story and my story have crossed paths in a very profound way in the seminal role that California lawyers for the arts have played in what I will call the resurrection of an important cultural resource in the state of California, namely the work of artists working in service to incarcerated people. Could you talk about that monumental effort, what you learned about advocacy in the trenches from that effort?

Alma Robinson: 00:14:26

Well, I have to say, first of all, that advocacy has to be collaborative. It's not a go it alone show. It's not about me, it's about us.

And so you have consider what everybody's goals are, how you can match them up and work together towards the greater good that will benefit everyone. And sometimes the benefits are not visible or known when you start out on a journey.

in this issue started back in: 2003

We got very energized around that effort and started putting on a series of programs, California Arts and Healthy Communities, to show the value of the arts in different spheres. The arts and health, public safety, justice, education, tourism, the economy of California. We did those programs.

They were broadcast on cable TV around the state, but nothing was happening.

Then we did arts and environmental dialogues because we recognized that artists could have a role in addressing climate change issues, expanding public awareness about these issues, getting involved with that sector, those advocates, and finding ways to make the arts meaningful. There was some progress around that issue, but it didn't bring about any change.

Then in: 2011

We got some grants from the Gabody Foundation, San Francisco foundation, to do demonstration projects that would bring some evidence and numbers to the state legislature and the governor's office about the benefits of arts programs in corrections. Often we tell great stories about the value of the arts. We are wonderful storytellers.

But until you have numbers and data, you may not get the response that you're seeking from legislators who are counting their dollars and trying to see what the measurable benefits are.

So once we got that research going and in place and we could report the find, we were able to start working with the hearts and minds of the leaders in corrections in our own state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. And they listened, they learned, and they did a pilot project for two and a half million dollars.

Meanwhile, we were starting to have national conferences on this topic, bringing in people from around the country to learn and exchange information.

And we had some wonderful keynote speakers at Those conferences, including Wayne Kramer, who was the founder of Jail Guitar Doors, unfortunately deceased now. He was a wonderful light and inspiration for that effort.

And he came up to Sacramento to participate in a meeting with CDCR staff about how important these programs were.

Bill Cleveland: 00:18:03

Here are Jackson Brown and then Wayne Kramer talking about Jail Guitar Doors on pbs. You know, to me, it's really interesting that the work is being done. It's really, we, we need it. We really need a way to reclaim these lives and to.

And to, you know, the amount of people who are incarcerated is really shocking. I feel that music has been the most rewarding thing in my life and it's the most valuable thing I could pass on to anybody. The guitars aren't gifts.

We don't give them as gifts. The guitars represent a challenge.

If you accept these guitars, then you're accepting the challenge to use them, to find a new way to express yourself. Positive way to say, this is who I am in the world.

Alma Robinson: 00:19:10

I think that helped inspire them to move forward. Then we had a hearing in Los Angeles. Tim Robbins was one of the speakers. And we got some great press from LA Times.

That hearing was held by the Joint Committee on the Arts. I recall asking at the end of the hearing, this is really good medicine and it's cheap. Why wouldn't you want to do more of this?

arts programs in prisons. By: 2016

And then we began to expand it around the country. We did some similar demonstration projects in New York State prisons, in New Orleans and in Houston, Texas, in county jails.

So it's been an interesting evolution from an idea that was advocacy and collaboration as well as involving academic research.

Bill Cleveland: 00:20:19

So a question that I'm most curious about is to what degree did the original arts and corrections experience, legacy history that had been a significant part of Department of Corrections prior to this, in the last part of the 20th century, impact the reception that you had when you revived the idea that it might be a good idea to reinvest in this kind of a program?

Alma Robinson: 00:20:56

s work nationally back in the: 1980

ad done an important study in: 1983

So cost benefit analysis, it was just an amazing report that we continued to draw on as we started building our own evidence based demonstration projects with Larry. And Larry continues to be a wonderful guide on various evaluations that we're doing even now about our reentry program.

Bill Cleveland: 00:21:53

So an adjunct to that, and I don't know if you had access to this, but after Larry finished his seminal work, the Department of Corrections got into the research business. And when I was running Arts and Corrections, they did a comprehensive recidivism study.

Now, that's always problematic because measuring recidivism is hard. There's a serious difficulty in narrowing cause effect relationships with the data.

But I think it's pretty interesting that the Department of Corrections eventually became the principal investor in that whole program for over 20 years.

Alma Robinson: 00:22:34

Recidivism is an important issue because if we continue to just maintain a revolving door, we're not going anywhere as a society. We're just bringing people back and forth.

Just recently, I learned about a film that was made by Artists Inside at San Quentin about people who chose to go back in because they were homeless and hungry and wanted the stable life that prison offers them.

Bill Cleveland: 00:23:08

Here's a small piece of unhoused and unseen from San Quentin News. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. It's about survival. And that's what this story tells more than anything.

The problem with being homeless is I had nowhere else to go. It sucks sleeping outside. So you try everything you can. You'll go anywhere, you'll do anything just so that you don't have to sleep in the cold.

Alma Robinson: 00:23:37

Sleep in the cold, sleep in the cold.

It was just mind blowing to think that our society can't do better than that for people, that we can't find a way to welcome them and give them the good life, help them find their path towards success, fulfill themselves. And that's what helped us generate this reentry program that I mentioned.

Bill Cleveland: 00:24:04

Yeah.

If you think about it, the return on investment, if you want to put it that way, we've spent 30, 40, $50,000 a year to lock these people up and 95, 98% of them going to spend some portion of their life back in our neighborhoods, in our cities, in our towns, as our neighbors.

I'll never forget standing outside of Soledad Prison, which is in the middle of nowhere, and seeing these guys who were just released get on a bus and walk up to the guy who's driving the bus and just say to him, give me all your money so that they would be rearrested.

Alma Robinson: 00:24:57

Wow.

Bill Cleveland: 00:24:58

And I saw that Happen two or three times.

Alma Robinson: 00:25:01

Wow.

Bill Cleveland: 00:25:02

And that's all they needed to do. I mean, it was a thing. It wasn't some aberration mental health thing. Yeah. It's like the ultimate tragedy. A capsule lesson that's a failure.

It's extraordinary as a society that that would be a moment in anybody's life. I mean, people make mistakes and terrible things happen to them.

But when the state is basically taking control over your life, to have that as the end of the story is pretty, pretty sad. It's depraved. So I just want to thank you as one of the parents of the original arts and corrections program.

Alma Robinson: 00:25:42

Yes, you were.

Bill Cleveland: 00:25:43

apart back there in the early: 2000

Alma Robinson: 00:25:54

rn until eight years later in: 2011

But I learned about that, as I mentioned, from getting to know Laurie and Jack and then and, of course, Marin Shakespeare.

Laurie invited me to come to see a play, and I was just so moved by the passion and the dignity that people had not only as actors, but when they talked about how much it changed their lives and their relationships out on the yard as who they were becoming as people through that experience was very moving to me.

Bill Cleveland: 00:26:53

Inside of one of California's most notorious prisons, you will be surprised.

Alma Robinson: 00:26:58

In a room that looks like a.

Bill Cleveland: 00:27:00

High school cafeteria masquerading as a chapel is a chance to step into costume.

Alma Robinson: 00:27:07

And shed a facade.

Bill Cleveland: 00:27:08

Week after week after week, you get the opportunity to see somebody's mask come off their face. At San Quentin Rehabilitation center in Marin, incarcerated people can perform Shakespeare with a modern twist.

The great thing I love about doing Shakespeare in prison is the fact that you get to claim your body. You get to have that ownership of something that you thought you lost.

Alma Robinson: 00:27:35

Marin's Shakespeare company started its prison program 22 years ago. Kellen Williams, who played the lead role.

Bill Cleveland: 00:27:40

Of King Ferdinand in the production of.

Alma Robinson: 00:27:42

n a part of the program since: 2015

Bill Cleveland: 00:27:46

. He's been behind bars since: 1998

You know, whether I'm playing the king or whether I'm playing, you know, a servant, like, I get to choose what I get to be. So having that choice is the greatest thing.

With that agency, the troupe is encouraged to make the show their own, in this case incorporating 21st century hits. Give my love to you. You're my end and my beginning. Even when I lose, I'm winning because I give you hope.

I think one of the ironies, of course, is that if you think about every citizen in the state of California, a significant percentage of what they pay in taxes goes to the maintenance of this gigantic system that is extraordinarily expensive, both in terms of economics, but also in terms of this social damage that occurs as a result of our criminal justice system. And I think there's a reason why each time it's come up.

When we started the arts and corrections program, George Duke Magin was the governor of California.

And George Duke Magin's platform for getting elected governor of California was basically, we're going to turn the prison system into a lock and feed agency. That's it. We're going to take away everything.

And in very short order, we made the case in what was then a very conservative political environment in the state of California, that this is a no brainer. Eloise Smith and William James and all of us working together made that case.

And it was clear that prisons would be safer because they weren't safe at all and people were going to do better when they came out.

And so when you revived the idea as California was struggling, I think, with its status as an offender according to the federal government, in terms of the unconstitutional nature of its prison system, particularly with regard to the health of the people that they were taking care of, they saw the, like you said, this is so cheap and it's so effective. It just is a no brainer. So I just want to tip my hat.

Alma Robinson: 00:30:33

Yeah, well, thank you. And I'm happy to acknowledge your role in moving this forward. All of those years, I think the program was defunded.

There was a recession at the time, but it seems like you still have to maintain the good things that bring people joy and bring people an opportunity to overcome the worst thing they ever did. And that's what the arts do, they do. So it's really quite a tragedy.

But there was a lot going on then in terms of sentencing laws and nationally as well as in the state, there was a movement to lock up more and more people. And just so happens that there were more and more brown and black people that were locked up and poor people.

And as you mentioned earlier, it's not just the individual whose life is traumatized. Their family's destroyed, the community doesn't have foot soldiers and people who can go out and earn a living.

And a lot of the people in corrections that I've learned are very talented. They're the risk takers. They're the ones that were on the wrong side of the street because they were bored in school or whatever.

And so why were they bored in school?

This is another thing that I've been looking at recently in connection with the book I'm writing, because there's so much research that shows that art programs keep kids engaged in school.

Bill Cleveland: 00:32:13

Absolutely.

Alma Robinson: 00:32:14

And off of that school to prison Pipeline. Kurt Toftlin, he is from Kentucky, Shakespeare behind bars.

So I interviewed him and he talked about having worked in schools, in elementary schools, and the teachers would exclude the kids with attention deficit disorder from his workshops.

And he insisted that they bring them back and found out that they were the most creative kids, were the ones that were likely to act out and to be banished.

And so I can understand that trail from the classroom to antisocial behavior, to being excluded, ostracized, and then suddenly you're on some other path out there in the streets.

Bill Cleveland: 00:32:58

Yeah.

And then the flip side is you come inside and whether you think of yourself as a creative person or not, if you stumble into an arts classroom, the criteria for success aligns very well with the unique ways of engaging the world that often people with learning disabilities have.

So not necessarily a disability, but just another way of engaging information and thinking and seeing how the art world is basically, come on down, put that to use, because we're going to get there no matter what. Right. That's the journey. And so that's why I think every time art programs inside just open their doors, they get overwhelmed with students.

You don't have to sell incarcerated people on whether or not to go and participate in an art program. They never have a problem filling a classroom.

Part 3 Optimism so I'd like to switch channels here a little bit, because your work, your expertise is sadly now again at the center of something that's happening all around us, which is the world of the questioned constitution, the status of nonprofits, the status of artists. All of this is now a world of uncertainty and in some cases, danger.

My question is, what is your take on where we are, particularly as it relates to people involved in art making, individually and at the nonprofit level? And where do you think we're headed?

Alma Robinson: 00:34:58

I'm thinking this is such a complicated time. Every day there's a new challenge.

And I think artists have an important voice because artists are often independent and they're Saying things that need to be heard, but they're often not constrained by having institutional connections and fealty. And so it's very important that artists continue to have a voice.

I was really thrilled to see that city of San Francisco made millions of dollars available this week, it was announced for artists and arts projects all over the city.

I hope that other local jurisdictions in California continue to do that, even in the face of the budgetary challenges that we know they're all facing.

Because it is so important, and it's so important that we continue to have arts in our schools too, so that young people have an opportunity to learn they can express themselves. The first Amendment rights are under attack in ways that are very stressful to our Constitution, to our society.

I was a journalist before I went to law school, and I understand how important the independent press is.

So we need to continue to have the voices that challenge and criticize and get people to understand how important it is that we maintain our society as a democracy, as a place where we do learn how to disagree without violence, where we can have a voice. And I think the arts are really important in upholding those values.

Bill Cleveland: 00:36:44

Yeah.

And one of the things that's been intruding into my thinking about all this is I'm going to use not a pejorative, but a term that is sometimes used as one, which is that the do gooder sector of America is deeply embedded in the idea of what I consider a flawed system called the 501C3 nonprofit structure. You're right. I think that the independent artist actually has an outsized role because they can walk on both sides of the street.

A lot of them depend on nonprofits for some of their work, but they also have a certain level of independence.

Be that as it may, I am increasingly concerned that the nonprofit industrial complex, as it is often called, puts a lot of people who are doing what I think of as good work, important work in our society at risk because of their direct connection to the IRS and the rules of engagement that exist there. What's your thought about that?

Alma Robinson: 00:38:02

Are you asking if the IRS is a threat to. To nonprofits in the current administration?

Bill Cleveland: 00:38:10

Yeah.

I mean, what I'm basically is we're already gone through multiple rounds of new criteria, not only what is acceptable, just in terms of subjective programming, but also legal. So now we're in this vague netherworld where the term DEI or anything related to value systems around those things.

Any non profit organization in the country is now vulnerable to receiving the letter that says you have to cease and Desist or any funding that is either directly or indirectly connected to the federal government is going to be withdrawn.

And I mean, I have dozens and dozens of colleagues who are sitting with budgets and you may be one of them sitting with budgets that have been affected by this. And that's a multi layered tyranny there.

Alma Robinson: 00:39:19

Yeah. And I don't think it's going to last. I think I'm going to be optimistic. I know it's a dark time. Good, good, dim time. But it's not going to last.

Because at the end of the day, the value of America as America is based on diversity.

It is based on understanding and valuing all of the cultural contributions that have been made by the people who came here and most of the people that came here through immigration, through a wide variety of sources around the world. So this cannot withstand common sense.

Common sense is going to take over because you cannot suppress diversity in our society and continue to have a prosperous and meaningful United States of America because too many carve outs are already being made. Well, we can't hurt the farmers, we can't hurt the construction industry. We need the housing. We need somebody to pick the crops.

We have to have people that are educated, that can speak different languages, not just literally and not just tech, but people who can understand the fundamental values that people bring from all corners of the earth. That's who we are. And so it's going to take some time, but I think we're going to come back to that position and hopefully in a stronger way.

Bill Cleveland: 00:40:52

Well, given the fact that your work is rolling up your sleeves and dealing with the hard reality of how law works in this country, so that you are seeing a trajectory that has optimism connected to it is really great to hear because you know of what you speak. These struggles are struggles.

Alma Robinson: 00:41:16

It is a struggle and it's the only way. And we have annually produced a fundraiser called Artistic License Awards. And we don't just honor people from one political party or the other.

We're looking for the good things that everybody brings to the table. And eventually that's what's going to win, because that's the only thing that can win.

We cannot have an unvaccinated population and have measles taking over.

Bill Cleveland: 00:41:47

Right.

Alma Robinson: 00:41:47

To use a different example.

Bill Cleveland: 00:41:49

Exactly.

Alma Robinson: 00:41:50

Eventually the health industry and the government are going to see the common sense of having vaccination, having people educated in the values of equity and inclusion, rather than all of us fighting all the time over small bits of territory.

Bill Cleveland: 00:42:11

Yes, I looked at one of those letters. Describe diversity, equity and Inclusion as illegal. I mean, it's almost like you could see the radioactivity rising up off of those dangerous words.

Alma Robinson: 00:42:25

Right.

Bill Cleveland: 00:42:27

Those ideas.

Alma Robinson: 00:42:28

Who is not diverse? I mean, in your own history.

Bill Cleveland: 00:42:32

Yeah, exactly.

Alma Robinson: 00:42:34

An African ancestor or an Indian, Are you going to denounce that part of your own history? How many interracial families do you know? I don't think we're in a bubble around that in California for sure. Right.

And so we can't have our family disrespecting each other because of who they are and what they represent.

Bill Cleveland: 00:42:54

Why not celebrate it and recognize that our history tells us over and over and over again? Actually, this is the secret sauce.

Alma Robinson: 00:43:04

Exactly. Right. When they talk about tech and all of that, how many people who had these large companies are from immigrant families or created themselves?

What are we talking about? Do we really want a brain drain? It's going to be tough for the next few years, but I do think we're going to come around to common sense.

Bill Cleveland: 00:43:29

Well, I'm pro common sense. If we actually get through this as a result of common sense winning out, you're right. It could turn a page. It could be a new chapter.

Alma Robinson: 00:43:41

We can have a renaissance.

Bill Cleveland: 00:43:42

Yes. Of common sense. Wow.

Alma Robinson: 00:43:46

Right? Yes.

Bill Cleveland: 00:43:48

Back to basics, I think they call it. Yeah. So are you affected at all by any of this?

Alma Robinson: 00:43:55

Well. Well, we did get a letter terminating our grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The NEA has funded our arts and corrections expansion projects, our conferences, our reentry program for formerly incarcerated people, where, by the way, we have placed 224 people in paid arts internships with a nonprofit arts organization around the state.

Bill Cleveland: 00:44:24

That's what I call bad news about good news. And it's that re entry program good news that I want to hear more about. I know that's a really interesting story that deserves to be heard in full.

So I'm going to suggest that we save that for a To be Continued Next Chapter, which will air next week. Now, as we wrap this first part of our conversation with Alma Robinson, here are a few things that stood out for me.

The first is that collaboration is at the heart of systemic change.

Whether fighting for cultural restitution, legal advocacy for artists, or transforming prison arts programs, Alma emphasized that no major progress happens in isolation. Real change requires shared goals, cross sector alliances, and collective action.

Next is a reiteration of something we say practically every week on this show. For many folks and communities, art is not a luxury or a diversion. It's a lifeline. From youth engagement to prison rehabilitation.

It's just plain simple. The arts are a powerful force for healing, empowerment, education.

Almost decades of work prove that creativity can be a public good that could be measured, reducing recidivism, building self worth, and reconnecting communities.

And finally, informed and principled optimism is an act of resistance in the face of systemic challenges, from cultural erasure to political threats against DEI efforts. Alma maintains a grounded, steadfast belief in common sense, democracy, and the power of diverse voices.

Her outlook reminds us that resilience and optimism are themselves tools for justice. So thanks to all of you for listening. And please remember that this story is not over.

So join us next week for the Next chapter, the Story of California Lawyers for the Arts Re Entry Program, a groundbreaking initiative that's placed over 220 formerly incarcerated individuals into paid internships with arts organizations all across California.

We'll hear from Alma and from Intern Program participant Frank Quiros about how it's reshaping reentry and reintegration through creative opportunity.

Art is Change is a product of the center for the Study of Art and Community or the theme and soundscapes spring forth from the head, heart and hand of the Maestro. Judy Munson. Our text editing is by Andre Nebbe, our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration comes from the ever present spirit of ook235.

So until next time, stay well, do good and spread the good word. Once again, please know this episode has been 100% human.