Watch: Youth editors from CHARM lit mag discuss the Black Lives Matter movement

Literary arts organization CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth  started a Q&A series with artists to promote the latest issue of its literary magazine and empower youth voices as they talk about what the Black Lives Matter movement means to them.

As a part of my fellowship with Report for America, I’m tasked with partnering with an organization and promoting media literacy among the youth. That can look like a lot of things from fellow to fellow. Some teach youth workshops others help run school newspapers.

For me, it’s working with CHARM lit mag’s editorial board in an advisory capacity. That partnership led to this Q&A series with poets as another avenue to highlight the magazines mission.

Since February 2020, student editors have been curating a collection of poems, in support of the Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action, using poems that were featured in previous volumes of CHARM.

CHARM has received and published many poems addressing systemic racism, police brutality, and racial injustice, as well as poems that celebrate Black joy, identity, and liberation. This series and current issue is another to amplifying Black voices and experiences while actively pursuing anti-racism in their organization and through their publications.

Check out the first edition of the Q&A, held Saturday, August 22, below. It features youth editors Kristiana Smith and Rashad Holloway:

 

 

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Donte Kirby is a 2020-2022 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.