Produced in partnership with the Anna Julia Cooper Center of Wake Forest University, Black on Campus was a national program for 10 storytellers—chosen from a pool of more than 100 applicants—in two- or four-year colleges, universities, or graduate schools, working under the direction of Nation contributing editor Melissa Harris-Perry, founding director of the AJC Center and Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University, and Dr. Sherri Williams, assistant professor in race, media, and communication at American University.

Black on Campus allowed participants to develop professional skills as they documented the experiences of black college students and reported for The Nation on issues of national consequence to a student audience. Following in the examples of Ida B. Wells and Anna Julia Cooper—righting wrongs by shining the light of truth upon them to reframe our understanding of the political, cultural, and personal implications of race—the stories from the talented young Black on Campus writers sparked national attention and helped broaden Nation readers’ understanding of the travails of young people of color.

Read the collection below along with essays from the project’s founders.