Shanelle Mathews
I collaborate with social justice activists, organizations, and campaigns to inspire action and build narrative power. Most recently, I served as the Communications Director for the Movement for Black Lives.
In 2016, I founded the Radical Communicators Network (RadComms) to strengthen the field of narrative power and support a growing ecosystem of leftist and progressive communicators. I also train spokespeople to make critical, real-time interventions through the media.
My academic work bridges movement and classroom. In 2017, I joined The New School as its inaugural Activist-in-Residence, where I spent ten semesters teaching courses such as Black Resistance: 1960–Present, Critical Theory and Social Justice, and Resistance Narratives from 21st Century Social Movements.
In fall 2023, I joined City College at the City University of New York as a Distinguished Lecturer. There, I teach courses including 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’m currently co-authoring a forthcoming anthology, Liberation Stories, Building Narrative Power for 21st Century Social Movements that documents 21st-century narrative strategies and world-building campaigns led by leftist and progressive communications workers
Radical Communicators Network
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 practice
Media Training
The role of the narrative practitioner in combatting oppressive forces is to advance counter-hegemonic values, frameworks, and practices across the domains of power that structure the organization of society and influence the experiences of individuals within it.
Narrative power goes beyond storytelling; it’s about who gets to frame the conversation, who is heard, and whose experiences are validated. Dominant narratives often serve to maintain the status quo, privileging voices and perspectives that uphold systems of power, whether it’s white supremacy, colonialism, or corporate capitalism.
But there’s power in the margins—especially among those who are resisting these systems and crafting stories of liberation, resilience, and solidarity.