Hi there,
A few weeks ago, my husband asked if I wanted to go on a date night to see Jane Goodall speak in Detroit. I told him I wanted to go, but not as a date night. I wanted it to be a family night.
My daughter April is fourteen. Jane Goodall was ninety-one. I wanted April to see the woman who showed the world that chimpanzees use tools, feel emotions, and deserve empathy. In the process, she reminded us what it means to be human.
I'm so grateful we were able to see my lifelong hero, in person, just three weeks before she died. She was every bit as extraordinary as I’d hoped. Humble, fierce, and completely devoted to doing what she called her little bit.
In her words, “doing your little bit” doesn’t mean loving the work. It means believing it matters, even when it’s hard, messy, or unfair.
Through Jane's story, we see how the starting line isn’t the same for everyone. In 1960, when she was twenty-six, the British government refused to let her study chimpanzees alone because she was a woman. They called it “almost amoral” for a young woman to live in the bush without a chaperone.
So her mother, Vanne, volunteered to go with her. They shared a tent. They battled malaria. They lay side by side, passing a thermometer back and forth, too weak to move.
That act of solidarity, one woman supporting another, is at the heart of this week’s episode. We talk about:
- The difference between fairness and equality
- The hidden costs of racism and sexism, or what economist Anna Gifty calls the double tax
- How affirmative action evolved from President Kennedy’s promise of fairness to the Supreme Court’s latest rollback
- And why Jane Goodall’s defiance still offers a roadmap for courage and conviction today
Legacy isn’t built all at once. It’s built in small, steady acts of persistence, the ones no one sees but everyone benefits from.
