Host Liz Purvis returns to The Foxfire Dispatch after a couple months away, explaining she needed the break while starting a new job and moving into a new home. In this minisode, she skips a full news breakdown and leans into an “Even Art Is Political” segment, reading Ada Limón’s “A New National Anthem” and reflecting on its tension of critique and belonging, then sharing her own poem of the same title, written after Limón, about loving a place that keeps trying to make you leave and continuing to show up for people told their voices don’t count.

She outlines what’s ahead for season two as North Carolina heads into the summer of 2026 and toward the general election: following congressional races, amplifying down-ballot and judicial races, discussing progressive infrastructure work, featuring more interviews, and including more art and culture, while maintaining a looser schedule and asking for grace.

00:00 Welcome Back Minisode

01:39 Where Ive Been

02:57 Why This Podcast

03:54 Even Art Is Political

05:01 Ada Limon Poem

07:31 My New Anthem

10:38 Season Two Roadmap

13:23 Rest And Resolve

14:22 Support And Sign Off

Host Liz Purvis discusses what it means to run outside the two-party system with Jason Brown, an independent progressive candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 4th District, a Democratic-leaning seat spanning urban/suburban areas like Richmond and rural communities farther south.

Brown argues reform within a capitalist two-party framework can’t deliver systemic change and says the system prioritizes private profit over public good. His core platform is abolishing ICE and pursuing “affordability for all,” including housing, education, healthcare, universal pre-K, and public transit, while criticizing spending on war and proposed ICE detention expansion.

He describes voter frustration with “lesser of two evils” politics, emphasizes organizing working-class power, and shares campaign realities without party infrastructure, including ballot-access signature gathering and relying on small-dollar donations while rejecting corporate PAC and AIPAC money.

Host Liz Purvis welcomes guest host Coach LeVon Barnes of Alamance County, a 23-year educator and working-class father running for a North Carolina General Assembly House district 64, to discuss why he entered politics and what he learned from past campaigns.

We break down key North Carolina primary results and dynamics, including Alamance county commissioner and sheriff races, Durham’s Congressional District 4 primary between Valerie Foushee and Nida Allam (and Allam’s concession), new Durham school board members, and debates over severe public education underfunding and how counties are forced to fill gaps. We also discuss Roy Cooper’s Senate run, the importance of judicial races like Justice Anita Earls, surprising statewide outcomes, the razor-thin Phil Berger–Sam Page Republican contest, Democratic primary upsets of incumbents who overrode vetoes, and how turnout, organizing, and down-ballot investment shape November. Find LeVon at LeVonforNC.com