In our final installment, three women journalists discuss the importance of owning one’s narrative and identity within a media landscape grappling with the construct of modern journalism — ideas that shape many of the concepts confronting white and non-White journalists including inclusivity, bias and objectivity. An equitable newsroom must be more than a facade of representation; it must address access to position and power with a commitment to decolonizing journalism.

In this exclusive column for Public Square Amplified, senatorial candidate Lawrence Hamm, founder of the People’s Organization for Progress, explains his decision to vote “uncommitted” in the upcoming New Jersey presidential primary, taking place June 4. Hamm is the only candidate in the primary who has said he will vote “uncommitted” to protest the war in Gaza.

In part one of this series, we featured stories of success, struggle and purpose from three remarkable women journalists who built their careers in primarily white-male-dominated newsrooms. For part two, we sat down with three more remarkable women journalists in the state working to establish a more equitable and inclusive media landscape that centers the narratives of communities being pushed to exist on the periphery of mainstream media.

In light of the importance of journalism for a cohesive civil society, healthy democracy, well-informed public and transparent government, some of New Jersey's most remarkable women journalists reporting on cities and communities around the state will share their stories of success, struggle, purpose and wisdom: What drives their work despite the challenges, the importance of white and non-white women in journalism, and tips and insights for others looking for support and inspiration in the field.

In 2024 and beyond, it might be hard for those who have grown up with the World Wide Web, and social media in particular, to understand that there was not an instant grapevine in 1995 for Black journalists from across the nation to immediately learn about the First Amendment violations of a convicted murderer in Philadelphia who was an affiliate president 15 years prior to the 20th anniversary NABJ convention.

NABJ was an easy target for the “Free Mumia” movement because the traditional professional journalism values of objectivity and detachment, according to the group’s president, prevented it from taking a political position. But this only raised some important questions: Don’t people form organizations in order to be able to take a collective stand? Doesn’t the organization provide a cover, a collective shelter of the results of private votes, in order to do what you could not get away with as an individual? How come, at least for NABJ, the situation seemed to work in the reverse?

The professional maxim in the journalism profession, at least in mainstream quarters, is that a journalist should never be part of the story he or she is covering. It’s a challenge to the mainstream journalist, who always has to draw the fine line between observing and participating.

On November 9, the growing global movement for a "Free Palestine" took to the streets of Newark for the Shut It Down for Palestine rally and march; the third time in under a month.

In his Black-and-White medium, Brian Branch Price, Public Square Amplified photojournalist, and editor, narrates the Palestinian community's profound rage, indomitable spirit, and unwavering determination to end the war on Gaza, and he and they find a narrow space that allows him both distance and intimacy.

Standing atop the steps with Ali are Abeera Saeed, the co-founder of the Ali Leadership Institute and Yale graduate; Uriel Bruno, a junior at County Prep High School, Azra Bano, a Piscataway High School senior, and Zachary Yabut, a High-Tech High School senior. Attendees rallied at city hall to demand state officials lower the voting age to 16 for school board elections.

Aside from building the Vote@16 initiative, which organized the rally, Bano is also co-chair of Vote16NJ. She said the impetus for the rally stemmed from earlier movements like the one in Takoma Park, Maryland, the first city in the United States to allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections.

There are two definitions of the word “democracy” that are critical to understanding the core principles that should guide organizers and activists. The first is from the Oxford Languages, which reads that democracy is “the practice or principles of social equality,” and the second is from Webster, which says that democracy is “the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges.”

MONTCLAIR, NJ–When Renée Johnston received an invitation from the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) to direct a teach-in about Black August, she was excited to convene fellow New Jersey-based organizers for an evening “about education and purpose.” Through her outreach, a small group of leading activist organizations–unified by their belief in abolition and commitment to organizing–gathered in Montclair on Wednesday, August 23, to learn. Ensconced in an intimate gathering space beneath a restaurant for nearly three hours, attendees deepened their knowledge of the plight of the Black political prisoner in the United States of America.

On May 8th Condoleezza Rice spoke to the Princeton Theological Seminary community as part of the Intuition’s inaugural forum series on faith and American democracy called, The Future of American Democracy. According to the series’ promotional material, its intention is to address the uncertain political realities of our time by discussing topics from polarization to bipartisanship.

Unions representing faculty and workers at Rutgers University added to the rich history of the importance of organizing for workers' rights: On April 9, some nine months after working without a contract, 94 percent of the members of three unions across the three campuses voted for a strike.

In New Brunswick, students joined unionized faculty and staff marching down George Street and onto the main campus outside the Scott Hall building at Voorhees Hall, calling for a fair contract with fair wages and benefits.

Fifty-five years later, his legacy stands: "The deep rumblings of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses, rising from dungeons of oppression," Martin Luther King, Jr. – Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community.

On April 4, the People's Organization for Progress (POP) held its annual march, followed by a vigil to commemorate the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) The rally brought forth organizations and individuals from across the state and river on the front lines of racial, political, and economic justice today.

In Public Square’s previous publication, interviews between reporter Zoe Van Gelder and seven fellow students within the Jersey City Public Schools District revealed a very noticeable trend: not one student knew what the Amistad curriculum was, despite a 2002 New Jersey law that mandates all students learn under its guidelines. This is perhaps because the Amistad curriculum doesn’t exist in the way most would think, as a distinctly written rubric of classroom lessons and materials. Although legislators and educators most often call it the Amistad ‘curriculum’, it is many things beyond one set of lessons.

Jersey City- From faraway Florida to our own neighborhoods in New Jersey, a national conversation continues to brew around how African American history, race, and racism are being taught in the nation’s public schools, with the most recent outspoken adversary being Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.. On February 14, 2023, in response to DeSantis’s actions and claims, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued a statement about ongoing efforts to expand the pilot AP African American Studies course from being taught in just one high school to include 25 more districts.

On Sunday, in celebration of the 94th birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the People's Organization for Progress (P.O.P) led its annual "MLK March," in activist-coalition form and style. P.O.P representatives say the forces of racism, white supremacy, and fascism seek to drag us back to the pre-Civil Rights era, but this year, they’re saying: “We won’t go back!”

"I believe in what Dr. King stood for and that there is much more work to be done,” said Tyrone Lockett, an activist from Newark, NJ. “I am here to honor him and the ancestors who came before us because of what they went through in the fight to live a free and decent life."

As a Community DJ, Cuqui Rivera isn't comfortable in front of a room, but she's been forced to become accustomed to being at the frontlines. Rivera, the founder of the Latina Action Network and New Jersey Prison Justice Watch, is a community organizer and Civil Rights advocate. As she's evolved over the years, she said she's come to understand that rallies and activism have purposes. For her, a huge part of it is unity.

Matt Dragon used to question the impact of rallies—is it “letting people off the hook by giving them this thing that lets them feel good, but not actually accomplishing anything?” wondered Dragon, Co-chair of Our Revolution, Essex County. One particular rally, the Justice for Carl Dorsey March in Newark, N.J., answered his question. After hearing from the family members and the solace they felt from seeing people show up in numbers, Dragon understood that something bigger came out of rallies, whether it was inspiring people or having laws changed. For this reason, he shows up and believes others should too.

Some are called to sing, others to preach, but Kevin Pierre’s calling is standing up for the people he calls “the least among us.” Pierre, 47, is Tri-Chair of the New Jersey Poor People’s Campaign, or NJPPC, an organization he joined in the fall of 2018 because he saw too many people who did not reach full potential because of their economic situations.