Some Love Stories Start with a Glance. This One Starts with a Movement.
A love story doesn’t just have to be between two people, says Jana Naomi Smith, the creator of Red for Revolution.
Seven years ago, the writer and filmmaker Jana Naomi Smith hit a wall with her application for film school. The problem? She had to write a short screenplay on a theme she personally found corny, tired and overdone: “Love at first sight.”
But something had to be written. So, instead of going with the expected, “boy meets girl and they all lived happily ever after” plot line, she decided to focus on how one’s passion for changing the world is love in and of itself.
Activism revolves around action items and to-do lists, but Smith was drawn to the love that fuels resistance—the quiet acts of service, the deep commitment, the care that holds movements together. “More than romance, love is a force,” she explained. “Tender, transformative, and deeply sustaining.”
And so her screenplay was written.
Smith never went to grad school but in the years since, she has adapted that screenplay for a short film, a web series, and a TV pilot—always leaving one scene unchanged: A fictional jazz singer named Lorraine Giovanni, captivated by an activist’s speech at a labor rights rally, later confesses that she’s fallen in love—not with Ella the activist, but with the cause.
Smith grew up in Gary, Indiana, captivated by the boldness of Black women public figures, like Billie Holiday and Dr. Maya Angelou. Their influence shaped her artistic vision, fueling a deep exploration of Black womanhood, erased histories, and intergenerational healing. “I feel like I’m continuing a conversation that did not start with me,” she says of her work’s mission.
In the spring of 2022, as a surge of homophobic rhetoric from Black evangelical influencers flooded Smith's social media and devastating reports of murdered Black trans women filled her Instagram feed, the weight of it made one thing clear: She needed to create something that pushed back on the “negativity in her orbit,” something like her shelved revolutionary love story.
And that’s how “Red for Revolution” (R4R) was born.
Created, written, directed, and co-executive produced by Smith, the six-part audio drama tells intergenerational stories of Black women, queer love, and liberation. The cast includes Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, S. Epatha Merkerson, Loretta Devine, Jennifer Beals, and Danny Glover.
The story follows Lorraine and Ella’s passionate love affair as seen through the eyes of 18-year-old Jazmine, a present-day college freshman who is navigating her own queer identity, first crush, and a complicated relationship with her homophobic mother. We learn that Ella is Jazmine’s grandmother, and as Jazmine seeks wisdom from her, we are transported back to 1971, when Ella was navigating her own identity challenges.
Smith and her team completed the series in 2024. It won the Best Independent Audio Fiction Award at that year’s Tribeca Film Festival, and received a distribution deal on the back of that win. This month, Radiotopia coincided its release with Black History Month and (of course!) the month we celebrate St. Valentine.
Smith talked to The Persistent about how crucial it is to amplify Black women’s narratives and how those narratives rest on the shoulders of women who have come before.
“Red for Revolution” is a Black period piece that flips between the 1970s and present day. It is centered on love, music, social justice, family and activism, told through the lens of Black queer women radicals—a perspective rarely seen in U.S. culture. What inspired you?
Growing up, I had an affinity for women who were changing the world either through their art, their writing, or their activism. I was a big fan of Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Dr. Maya Angelou, and Della Reese.
Once I got to college and learned about women within the Black Liberation movement, that affinity expanded to include women like Angela Davis, Assata Shakur and Ericka Huggins. Knowledge about their lives gave me the material to write [the first iteration of my screenplay]. But later on, when I decided to revise the story and adapt it into the audio drama that would become “Red for Revolution,” I leaned more on my personal experiences.
I don't take it lightly that I get to do this work. I know that I come from a lineage of women who were writing queer stories under pseudonyms, or weren't able to publish or publicly share their stories. This [work] is something I do joyfully, but I also do carry this weight—and it's a heavy weight—to honor these women and to make sure that I'm doing right by Black people, Black queer people in particular.
Love stories about women often center on romantic, platonic, or familial love. You chose love for revolution—a concept often reserved for male protagonists. How did you approach that perspective through Black women characters?
I would hear these stories about women within the Black Liberation Movement who would be moved to extreme action on things that seemed quite small. I remember reading how Ericka Huggins went to the 1963 March on Washington and saw [the singer and actress] Lena Horne: She sang the word “freedom” and was escorted off stage. That moment changed [Huggins’] life, moving her to commit to the movement.
And when [Huggins] was in college, and she came across material about police violence and Huey Newton [the leader of the Black Panther party], she dropped out of school, moved across the country with her future husband John Huggins, with no money and barely any gas, to join the Black Panther party to free Huey Newton.
I wondered how somebody can be so moved by a single speech or a single piece of paper to the point that they drop everything and change their lives?
I wondered how somebody can be so moved by a single speech or a single piece of paper to the point that they drop everything and change their lives? I couldn't wrap my mind around how people do that.
Black women, historically speaking, have dropped everything to go save or help someone else, sometimes at the expense of their own wellbeing. That comes from a place of love that surpasses our understanding—a love for Black people, for wanting us to be free. That is an unconditional love that can't quite be comprehended.
What opportunities does audio provide for telling Black women’s stories compared with, say, film and television?
There's a lot more freedom in the audio space for Black creators.
First and foremost, you don't need a lot of money—or you don't need as much as you would need to make a film. It's liberating in that sense. (I will say it can take as long as it takes to make a film.)
We've been working on this project for nearly three years and recorded it in over 10 studios throughout the country and even abroad in Vancouver. We worked with, I don't even know how many sound engineers and audio producers, and everywhere we went, we were treated with the utmost hospitality. Everyone was so kind and excited, and that is very rare coming from a filmmaking background. My peers and I have so many horror stories about the bad behavior and disrespect that goes on in film productions, the hierarchy and the belittling.
At the same time, a lot of these podcasts [Black-led narrative podcasts, like R4R] are within multimedia institutions where Black creatives aren't being platformed in the way that our white peers are. We won Tribeca and gained more attention, so we got lucky. But there are other Black women over here—Rachel Jarvis, Yhane Washington Smith, Nichole Hill, Aisha Casey, Rae Benjamin—who are doing phenomenal work, but they aren’t being platformed and they aren't getting the same distribution deals or resources.
Even though audio is liberating, there is still room for improvement and they [the podcast industry] can do better by Black women.
Holly Baxter
Ruchika T. Malhotra
Ruchi Kumar
