I collaborate with social justice activists, organizations, and campaigns to inspire action and build narrative power. I recently completed a tenure as the Movement for Black Lives communications director.

In 2016, I founded the Radical Communicators Network (RadComms) to strengthen the field of narrative power. I also train leftist and progressive spokespeople to make critical, real-time interventions through the media.

In 2017, I joined The New School as its inaugural Activist-in-Residence. I spent ten semesters on faculty teaching Black Resistance 1960 — Present, Critical Theory and Social Justice, and Resistance Narratives from 21st Century Social Movements.

In the fall of 2023, I joined City College at the City University of New York as their incoming Distinguished Lecturer, where I teach Narrative Power in the Black Radical Tradition, Rhetoric of Liberation: The Role of Narrative Power in Contemporary Movements, and Black Women's Resistance: Narratives of Safety and Survival.

I am co-authoring a forthcoming anthology detailing world-building narrative campaigns and strategies led by progressive and leftist social movement communications workers in the 21st century.

Radical Communicators Network (RadComms)

The Radical Communicators Network (RadComms) is a community of practice for emerging and experienced movement and communications workers. We strengthen and radically politicize the ecosystem of social change communications, cross-pollinate ideas across movements, and incubate strategies to build narrative power for a just and liberatory future.

RadComms envisions a world where powerful narratives serve collective care, mutual aid, and self-determination for all people and where radical imagination creates conditions for people to meet their communal and material needs.

The Radical Communicators Network (RadComms) is a community of practice for social justice communicators to cross-pollinate discussions across various movements, organizations, levels of experience, geographies, languages, and political associations. This network incubates transnational connections, visionary narrative strategy, and collaboratively developed frameworks and best practices.

Last year, RadComms took home bronze in the Anthem Awards for our research on how the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors talk about poverty and wealth. Check out the BROKE Project.

liberation stories: Building narrative power for 21st Century Social Movements

The 21st century has seen a profound shift in the global socio-political and economic landscape, shaped by seismic interventions ranging from the War on Terror to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2000 and 2024, social movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the Fight for $15, Palestine liberation, and queer and trans resistance have illuminated a new narrative—one rooted in an inclusive vision of society, driven by a newly politicized and radicalized generation. This shift didn’t happen by chance. Movement workers have meticulously crafted communications and narrative strategies, honing their political messaging and storytelling to seize narrative power in today’s struggles.

In Liberation Stories: Building Narrative Power for 21st Century Social Movements, some of today's foremost progressive and leftist communicators, organizers, artists, journalists, and academics share their collective insights in one powerful volume. As right-wing movements gain traction worldwide—attacking our books, our bodies, and our democracy—Liberation Stories emerges as a vital resource for constructing the world we envision, one story at a time.

The initial funding for this anthology came from Borealis Philanthropy and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Out Spring 2025 from New Press.

Media Training & Channel Black

Narrative power refers to the ability to shape and control the stories told in society, determining who gets to tell these stories, what narratives are emphasized, and how they are understood. It influences perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors through strategic storytelling. This power is often concentrated in the hands of influential groups—media moguls, policymakers, activists, celebrities, and the tech industry—who use formulas and algorithms to craft messages that shape societal norms, attitudes, and actions.

Building narrative power for a more inclusive and democratic society requires telling holistic stories that lead to comprehensive interventions and solutions. This means shifting the focus of policies and practices to center on the needs of the many rather than serving the interests of an elite few. Effective messaging goes beyond simply delivering information; it requires combining logic, data, values, and storytelling to clearly articulate the problem, solution, and a call to action.

To address the gap in access to progressive media training for Black organizers and impacted communities, I developed *Channel Black* in 2016. This program is a tailored media training curriculum designed to equip progressive spokespeople with the skills to make real-time, critical interventions through the media. Channel Black focuses on developing strategy, intervention, and spokesperson skills by drawing from everyday social movement leaders' lived experiences and cultural nuances.

By tailoring this program to meet the needs of emerging spokespeople and tapping into the deep knowledge of social movement leaders and impacted community members, Channel Black works to dismantle harmful narratives and amplify marginalized voices. The program democratizes how we make meaning of the world by changing the story and the storytellers.

Professor and narrative researcher Ken Plummer reminds us that “out of deep conditions of domination and exclusion, people create their own insights, understandings, knowledge, and narratives,” which are fundamental to the fight for the interests and self-determination of future generations.

Channel Black 3.0

In partnership with Black Feminist Future’s Constellation Network, Channel Black 2022 provides training for 10-15 seasoned and newly activated Black reproductive justice leaders to engage in leadership development rooted in shifting narrative power on reproductive health, rights, and justice issues facing Black birthing people. During Channel Black 3.0: Building Narrative Power for Reproductive Freedom, participants define and illustrate the importance and impact of narrative power, learn a methodology for how to analyze the hidden assumptions that prop up brutal systems of power, and demonstrate how to construct a meaningful message that prompts your audience to feel, say, or do something differently. 

If you’re looking for media training, hit me up.

I learned my media training practice from the great, late Chris Jahnke.

TEACHING AND SCHOLARSHIP

From fall 2018 to spring 2022, I served as faculty for the Freedom Scholars Program at The New School, a social justice peer-learning community where diverse students explore intersectional movement building and social justice. The program fosters a participatory, values-based curriculum, combining academic rigor with financial support, advocacy, and engagement with activists and organizers.

Freedom Scholars creates a space for students to critically apply their learning toward building an inclusive and dignified world. Through courses taught by scholar-activists, students engage with readings, podcasts, field trips, guest speakers, and community activities grounded in the principles of inquiry, community, trust, and integrity.

Today, I am a full-time Distinguished Lecturer at the City College at the City University of New York.

Previous Courses:

Black Resistance 1960–present @ The New School (2018)

Critical Theory and Social Justice @ The New School (2018 - 2022)

Resistance Narratives From 21st-Century Social Movements @ The New School (2022)

Narrative Power in the Black Radical Tradition @ City College (2023)

MPA Capstone @ City College (2024)

Current Courses:

Rhetoric of Liberation: The Role of Narrative Power in Contemporary Movements @ City College (2024)

Black Women’s Resistance: Narratives of Safety and Survival @ City College (2024)

MPA Communications in Public Service @ City College (2024)