In the twenty-third episode of Grit & Grace, entrepreneur and host Melissa Kiguwa interviews Marianne Williamson, a #1 New York Times best-selling author and spiritual thought leader. You may have seen her running for president during the United States 2019 presidential race or on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as Oprah's spiritual friend and counselor. In today’s episode, she talks about her campaign, why she advocates for reparations, and the role of conscience in politics.
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Marianne Williamson is a bestselling author, political activist, and spiritual thought leader.
For over three decades Marianne has been a leader in spiritual and religiously progressive circles. She is the author of 14 books, four of which have been #1 New York Times best sellers. A quote from the mega-bestseller A Return to Love, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…” is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers.
Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit that has delivered more than 13 million meals to ill and dying homebound patients since 1989. The group was created to help people suffering from the ravages of HIV/AIDS. They have since expanded their service to any person battling critical illness. She has also worked throughout her career on poverty, anti-hunger and racial reconciliation issues. She has advocated for reparations for slavery since the 1990’s and was the first candidate in the 2020 presidential primary season to make it a pillar of her campaign. In 2004, she co-founded The Peace Alliance and supports the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace.
In addition, she advocates for a cabinet-level Department of Children and Youth to adequately address the chronic trauma of millions of American children. In 2020, Marianne began The Marianne Williamson Podcast. Subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Marianne is a native of Houston, Texas.
In the twenty-second episode of Grit & Grace, entrepreneur and host Melissa Kiguwa interviews Dr. Nina Ansary. She is an author, a historian, a Board Member for The Center for Human Rights, and a United Nations Women Global Champion for Innovation working alongside Fashion Designer Rachel Roy and actress Zoe Saldana. Nina is the author of Anonymous Is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality (Revela Press/March 2020) included in Smithsonian Magazine’s “Books of the Week” and listed by Buzzfeed as “17 Brilliant Books That You Won’t Struggle to Finish.”
In this interview, she speaks to the transformative role women have played throughout history and why as writer Virginia Woolf wrote so many years ago, “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
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Dr. Nina Ansary is an award-winning Iranian-American author, historian, and women's rights advocate. As a UN Women Global Champion for Innovation and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics Centre for Women, Peace & Security, she regularly presents her work on the transformative role women are playing in global affairs at multilateral conferences, think tanks, and universities in the US and the UK, including Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard.
Nina is the author of Anonymous Is a Woman: A Global Chronicle of Gender Inequality (Revela Press/March 2020) included in Smithsonian Magazine’s “Books of the Week” and listed by Buzzfeed as “17 Brilliant Books That You Won’t Struggle to Finish”; and Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iran (Revela Press/2015), which garnered numerous awards – including the 2016 International Book Award in “Women’s Issues.” She is the recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Alumni Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), the 2019 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the 2018 Trailblazer Award from Barnard College, Columbia University. Nina has appeared on Larry King, Fox News, Sky News and the BBC, and been featured in a variety of publications, including Forbes.com, CNN.com, The Hill, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Elle, Teen Vogue and the Yale Journal of International Affairs.
Nina is an expert for the Women’s Media Center (WMC) SheSource and holds an MA in Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies and a PhD in History from Columbia University. She serves on the International Advisory Board of the University of Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum (MENAF), the Board of Directors of the New York-based organization The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), and the Board of Trustees of the Iranian American Women Foundation (IAWF).
Connect with Nina on Twitter (@drninaansary) | Instagram (@ninaansary) | Facebook (facebook.com/ninaansary)