I have written my first book. "Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism," is on sale now: bit.ly/bearingwitness….
This book is for #GeorgeFloyd. #AhmaudArbery. #PhilandoCastile. #EricGarner. #SandraBland. #TamirRice. And all of the black men, women and children who have been killed by excessive police force or vigilante violence.
This book has been a decade in the making. In the 2010s, I taught brilliant students @MorganStateU and @BowieState how to make news using only smartphones. I never imagined that by 2014, when Ferguson rose up, that Black people would use these devices for survival.
My dialogues with @aliciagarza, @davidbanner, @MsPackyetti, @samswey, @ClintSmithIII, @eveewing, @LincolnMondy, @rissaoftheway, @bdoulaoblongata, @DredScott, @sbchinn, @chrisstewartesq , @byDVNLLN and so many other crusaders against racial inequality fill these pages.
All of these iconic thinkers & doers either visited my lucky students in class, spoke to us by FaceTime, or let me join organizing sessions when this project was "just" a dissertation. Who knew this would become a book? Who knew this process would change and challenge me so?
This book is a love letter to the storytelling that Black people have done to preserve our history - to remind ourselves that we are human beings who deserve life and love and light.
This book shares my story too: my brushes with police brutality and the things I have learned while teaching smartphone journalism - as a Harvard @niemanfdn fellow, as the 2012 @NABJ Journalism Professor of the Year, as a @USCAnnenberg professor & as a black woman.
But above all, this book is a story about the will to shift one's own narrative and destiny. When Black people bear witness, nothing can stop change.
So add "Bearing Witness While Black" to your summer reading list. I dedicated my book to the littlest witness of all, Philando Castile's daughter, Dae'Anna. I think about her all of the time. Especially in these times. May this book be a balm. bit.ly/bearingwitness…
