The Emancipator, a digital magazine covering racial justice that was launched with great fanfare four years ago, is leaving Boston.
The project was originally a joint venture of The Boston Globe’s opinion section and the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. The Globe ended its involvement two years later. The Emancipator will now be based at Howard University, the leading historically Black university.
The move was actually announced back in February, but it will formally take place on Monday, the last day of the academic year. Co-founder Ibram X. Kendi, the well-known antiracism scholar, is leaving BU to take a position at Howard, and The Emancipator is following him to Washington.
Amber Payne, The Emancipator’s publisher, announced on Thursday that she’ll be stepping down, writing:
After June 30, The Emancipator will transition from Boston University to Howard University as part of our co-founder Ibram X. Kendi’s Institute for Advanced Study, which will be dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of racism in the global African Diaspora. The Emancipator will be part of the institute’s larger mission to enhance the general public’s understanding of racism and evidence-based antiracist solutions through academic and publicly accessible research, public lectures, events, workshops, and outreach programs.
Payne was originally hired as co-editor along with Deborah Douglas, who now teaches journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School and is director of Medill’s newly created Midwest Solutions Journalism Hub.
