Bearing Witness While Black: Technology, Race, and Documenting the Movement for Black Lives

During the current, game-changing, daily, protests calling for an end to police brutality and other forms of racist violence against Black Americans, we have seen unprecedented uses of technology, from the smartphone to social media, to document the history of this modern Civil Rights movement. Professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School Allissa V. Richardson explores this phenomenon in her book “Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest #Journalism,” and traces the tradition of activist journalism through the historical work of Black journalists during Abolition, the anti-lynching work of Ida B. Wells, and other precursors. Join Richardson and Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies at Duke University, for a discussion of what shifts in technology have meant for capturing the movement, and how Black communities in particular have commanded the narrative, often challenging more mainstream efforts to undermine calls for change.