DETROIT LOVE- by Renee Yang Geesler
Detroit based Grace Lee Boggs is a Chinese American Activist, writer and freedom fighter. Her more than 60 years of political involvement encompass many of the major social movements in the US. We were honored to celebrate Grace’s 94th Birthday celebration in July.
Grace Lee Boggs with Eloise Lee Program Director of Media Alliance, Khanh Pham Associate Director at National Radio Project, Renee Geesler Co-Director of First Voice
Listen to audio from our interview with Grace Lee Boggs here
In July we traveled to Detroit to attend the Allied Media Conference. For the past 11 years the AMC has brought together media innovators from very diverse backgrounds and walks of life. This conference really is a great way to network with other grassroots activists and evolve the definition of media and the role it plays in our lives.
Eloise S Lee the Program Director from Media Alliance, a media advocacy organization in Oakland, invited a few of us to Detroit to be on a panel titled White Spaces What? How to create media policy from the ground up. Below is the program description.
Presenters: Eloise S. Lee, Media Alliance; Renee Yang-Geesler, First Voice Media Action Program; Shanina Shumate, Women of Color Resource Center; Laura Hadden, Center for Digital Storytelling
In this workshop, we talked about strategies to broaden the ways in which we talk about communication policy, whether it be personal, local, national or global. We also talked about the processes involved in the creation of culturally relevant learning tools and the importance of community partnerships in organizing around media justice issues. We gave examples of Media Alliance’s Raising Our Voices Media Training Program, First Voice Media Action Project at KPFA-Pacifica, Women of Color Resource Center’s Technology Empowerment & Media Project of Oakland and the Center for Digital Storytelling to illustrate the critical role of grassroots media and first-voice content creation in reshaping communications policy.
8/14 Full Circle Radio Reportback
Angie D, Laura Hadden, and myself, Renee Geesler, produced a Full Circle show on KPFA 94.1 FM. We highlighted interviews and sound from the conference. For more information about Allied Media check out www.alliedmediaconference.org
Diana Nucera Allied Media Conference Organizer with Renee Yang Geesler
I also had the opportunity to sit down with one of the AMC organizers and hear how they put this conference together. Diana Nucera has been a media maker for the last ten years, and has been helping to organize the AMC for the last four years.
