The Freedomways Reporting Project is a fellowship program for journalists and storytellers in the U.S. South whose work serves to advance justice. In an effort to strengthen journalism driven by people who are building power within marginalized and oppressed communities, the program prioritizes women of color and LGBTQ people of color as participants.
We named this program in homage to the journal Freedomways, which published the work of journalists, artists, thinkers, and organizers who were integral to the Black freedom movement from 1961 until 1985. Over nine months, Freedomways fellows receive mentorship and technical support to produce a series of stories that are rooted in relationships with social movements and communities on the frontlines of struggle.
We inaugurated the first Freedomways cohort from June 2019 through February 2020. Fellows produced a series of stories that are rooted in relationships with social movements and communities on the frontlines of struggle.
Freedomways Stories 2019-2020
Clarissa Brooks
Cyntoia Brown Is Getting Back The Childhood She & So Many Young Black Girls Never Had
Alexis Crawford’s Untimely Death Exposes the Systems That Failed Her
Rebecca Centeno
What the Border Patrol doesn’t want you to know about their abuses
We can’t obtain immigration justice in a world of borders and nations
Jonece “Starr” Dunigan
Slavery hard to teach in ‘Cotton State’ of Alabama, elementary educators say
Alabama’s black history runs deep, but some students skim the surface
How a school’s 1st black history celebration empowered Jefferson County students
Antoinette Kerr
Families demand justice for Rhonda Jones, other murdered indigenous women
North Carolina officials are ignoring a crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women
Denechia Powell-Twagirumukiza
Georgia Is Funneling Millions of Dollars to Fake Abortion Clinics
How Georgia’s Blocked 6-Week Abortion Ban Is Already Affecting Clinics
Aminata Traore-Morris
The need for Gullah Geechee history in our schools
Freedomways 2019-2020 cohort
Fellows
Clarissa Brooks
Rebecca Centeno
Jen Deerinwater
Jonece Starr Dunigan
DaLyah Jones
Antoinette Kerr
Denechia Powell-Twagirumukiza
Aminata Traore-Morris
Mentors
Ko Bragg
Dr. Cynthia Greenlee
Tina Vasquez