Quiet As It’s Kept: Deconstructing Journalism and Elevating Black Storytelling

Join the Institute for Public Knowledge’s Race and Public Space Working Group and NYU Journalism for Quiet As It’s Kept: Deconstructing Journalism and Elevating Black Storytelling with Donovan X. Ramsey, in conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika, on Thursday, December 7th at 5:30 PM. Please RSVP here.

Donovan X. Ramsey is a journalist, author, and an indispensable voice on issues of identity, justice, and patterns of power in America. Ramsey’s writing career has been focused entirely on amplifying the remarkable unheard stories of Black America. He believes in people-first narratives that center individuals and communities—not just issues. His memorable magazine work includes profiles of Deion Sanders, Killer Mike, and Bubba Wallace for GQ; and Bryan Stevenson and Ibram Kendi for WSJ Magazine. Ramsey is the author of When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era, a work of narrative nonfiction exploring how Black America survived the crack epidemic. He was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. He holds degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he concentrated in magazine journalism, and Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, WSJ Magazine, Ebony, and Essence, among other outlets. He has been a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, NewsOne, and theGrio. He has served as an editor at The Marshall Project and Complex. Today, he calls Los Angeles home.

Chenjerai Kumanyika is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at New York University. Alongside his scholarship and teaching, disciplinary service on the intersections of social justice and media, Kumanyika specializes in using narrative non-fiction audio journalism to critique the ideology of American historical myths about issues such as race, the Civil War, and policing. He has written in scholarly venues such as Popular Music & Society, Popular Communication, The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture, as well as public venues such as The Intercept, Transom, NPR Codeswitch, All Things Considered, Invisibilia, and VICE. Kumanyika is also the co-creator, co-executive producer and co-host of Uncivil, Gimlet Media’s podcast on the Civil War and he is the collaborator for Scene on Radio’s influential Season 2 “Seeing White,” and Season 4 on the history of American democracy.