Rebel Spirit
Hosted by Akilah Hughes · iHeartPodcasts
4.8from 459 ratings
- 30
- Episodes
- 10
- Transcribed
- 459
- Ratings
- Daily
- Cadence
- 2024
- First episode
- 419M
- YouTube views
About Rebel Spirit
In Season Two of Rebel Spirit, Akilah Hughes picks up where her battle to change her high school’s Confederate mascot left off and quickly realizes the problem was never just a mascot. Shifting from her high school still clinging to the “Rebels” name to the long fight over a Jefferson Davis statue in the Kentucky State Capitol, Season Two expands into a sharp, funny, and deeply reported investigation into how America decides what, and who, it chooses to honor. Along the way, Akilah speaks with politicians from both sides of the aisle about their support for change, historians who help contextualize the fight to remove Confederate monuments, and artists who are part of building monuments their whole community can be proud of. All in an effort to answer this season's big question, if we’re willing to tear down racist monuments, why is it so hard to replace them with something better?
- Publisher
- iHeartPodcasts
- Category
- comedy · history · society & culture
- Language
- en
- Explicit
- No
- First episode
- 17 Jun 2024
- Latest episode
- 21 Jul 2026
Latest episodes
10 of 30 episodes have a transcript.
21 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
Episode 10: The Flags We Plant
14 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
Episode 9: You Can't Hide History
7 Jul 2026TRANSCRIPT
Episode 8: Son of A Mitch
Inside a recent episode
Episode 10: The Flags We Plant
Published 21 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act finally became law in 2022, 91 years after she died, and it only exists because she made the paper trail impossible to ignore. Bayard Rustin organized the March on Washington itself, the whole thing, from the buses to the sound system, and spent decades getting written out of the movement's own history because he was gay. He didn't get his flowers publicly until 2013, when Obama gave him a posthumous Medal of Freedom, 50 years after he did the work. Nobody who plants a tree gets to sit in its shade. None of these people got to see the thing they built finished, but they plan it anyway. […]
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See plansWho has been a guest on Rebel Spirit
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
- Hamza Walker
- Jamelle Bouie
- Joe Sonka
- Rivka Maizlish
- Karen Cox
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
- YouTube views
- 419,108,275
- Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
- Apple Podcasts (US)
- 4.8 / 5
- 331 ratings
- Spotify
- 4.8 / 5
- 128 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
- Quality
- 57
- Social presence
- 0
- YouTube
- 93
- Engagement
- 67
Contact Rebel Spirit
- Guest appearances
- Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Rebel Spirit
Who hosts Rebel Spirit?
Akilah Hughes host the show. Published by iHeartPodcasts.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes daily, based on its RSS feed.
Does Rebel Spirit take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
Where can I read transcripts?
10 of 30 episodes have a transcript on Pod Engine. Full transcripts are available with a Pod Engine plan.
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