The National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) netted a $750k grant courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and will fund the NBPC’s newest initiative, WOKE! This is great news for us because it means more, exceptional programming for the Black community!
“Through WOKE! Broadening Access to Black Public Media, NBPC will present a multitude of projects and events designed to connect creatives to funding, resources, partners, and distribution opportunities. Projects including the Black Media Summit will focus on bringing creatives together with Black thought leaders from social justice, immigration and education to discuss story ideas best suited for distribution across new technologies and platforms, such as VR (virtual reality), gaming, digital and mobile media. “
The consortium was founded in 1979 as there was (and still is ) a need for the Black experience to be represented fully and accurately on television and in film. Black Public Media‘s NBPC was instrumental in championing the likes of Spike Lee, Julie Dash, Stanley Nelson, Shola Lynch, and Byron Hurt earlier in their careers.
The past few years have been great for Black television and film. From Moonlight, Hidden Figures and Get Out to Insecure, Atlanta and black-ish are beacons in the dark within an environment which has been oversaturated with “non-scripted television series'” that frequently misrepresent the Black experience… we still have a long way to go. This grant handed to the NBPC will help to fill a void the Black community has been crying out to made whole.
If you’d like to find out more about the Black Public Media‘s National Black Programming Consortium initiatives, you can click here.
