Trevor Smith on How We Build Narrative Power behind Reparations

OFF-KILTER with Rebecca Vallas

Coming up on Juneteenth, which will for the second year be recognized as a federal holiday in the United States on June 20 to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States, Rebecca sat down with Trevor Smith, the director of narrative change at Liberation Ventures, an organization working to fuel the movement for Black-led racial repair, for a sneak peek at a new initiative he’s building called the Reparations Narrative Lab. As he describes it, the lab will serve as a first of its kind creative space designed to build narrative power behind reparations. Trevor is also the creator, curator, and editor of a newsletter titled Reparations Daily (ish) and working on his first book, Lethal Stereotypes: How the Stories We Tell Take Black Lives.

For more:

• Check out the National African-American Reparations Commission’s (NAARC) 10 point plan
• Here’s Liberation Ventures’ repair framework
• Dig into Harmony Labs’ explainer on narrative change: “What’s a Narrative?”
• Check out Michael Kraus’s op-ed in the Los Angeles Times: “Deep Racial Inequality Persists in the U.S.—But Many Americans Don’t Want to Believe It”
• Here’s Raj Chetty’s research on the myth of the American Dream in the New York Times Upshot: “Extensive Data Show Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys”

Subscribe to Reparations Daily (ish) and check out Trevor’s Twitter thread on BIPOC leaders doing narrative change work