The Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and Boston Globe Opinion announce The Emancipator, a resurrection of 19th-century abolitionist newspapers that will reframe the national conversation on racial justice

BOSTON, March 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and Boston Globe Opinion announced today a collaboration to launch The Emancipator, a new media platform that will reframe the national conversation on race.

Building on the tradition and impact of 19th-century antislavery newspapers that hastened abolition, The Emancipator will be reimagined for today to amplify critical voices, ideas, debates, and evidence-based opinion in an effort to hasten racial justice.

"When The Emancipator was first founded in 1820, it was very difficult for people to believe that slavery, 45 years later, would be no more, just as I think there are many people today who can't imagine that there could be a nation without racism and inequality," said  Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, co-founder of The Emancipator and founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. "This reimagined platform will marry the best of scholarship and journalism to analyze, comment, and seek truth about the racial problems of our time."

The Emancipator will showcase critical voices and ideas by building a hybrid newsroom -- anchored by the support of founding institutions, the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globe -- which will produce original opinion and ideas journalism. It will feature oped contributions from world-leading experts and community voices captured by student journalists. Philanthropic funding will help ensure that The Emancipator's content is free to the public.

"Boston has a storied newspaper tradition dating back to the 19^th century," said Bina Venkataraman, co-founder of The Emancipator and editorial page editor at The Boston Globe. "Resurrecting The Emancipator is an opportunity for journalists -- and readers -- to be engaged in something historic: an engine of ideas grounded in data, community experience, and scholarship that provokes new conversations and progress on racial justice."

The Emancipator is currently seeking two co-editors in chief to lead the initiative and plans to launch its newsroom later in 2021. In addition to co-founders Kendi and Venkataraman, members of the founding team include Kimberly Atkins, Boston Globe columnist and MSNBC contributor and Dr. Monica Wang, Associate Director of Narrative for the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. The project will be supported by an Advisory Board of prominent leaders and thinkers:  Joy Reid, Eddie Glaude, Sewell Chan, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Emily Ramshaw, S. Mitra Kalita, Jelani Cobb, Annette Gordon-Reed, Heather McGhee, Peniel Joseph, Jose Antonio Vargas , Julian Brave NoiseCat, Ian F. Haney López and Sunny Bates.

To learn more and to sign up for the project's newsletter, Unbound, visit www.theemancipator.org.

For updates on social media, follow The Emancipator on Twitter at @The_Emancipator.

About the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research
The mission of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research is to convene researchers and practitioners from various disciplines to figure out novel and practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice. The Center fosters exhaustive racial research, research-based policy innovation, data-driven educational and advocacy campaigns, and narrative-change initiatives. The Center is working toward building an antiracist society that ensures equity and justice for all.

About Boston Globe Opinion
The Boston Globe Opinion team (Globe Opinion), aims to provoke progress by holding leaders and institutions accountable, amplifying surprising and important voices, unearthing worthwhile debates, and showcasing solutions to society's greatest problems. Globe Opinion is committed to carrying on the best of Boston's journalistic traditions—and to imagining new ways to amplify powerful voices and perspectives on the most pressing issues of the day.

SOURCE Boston Globe Media Group