By Boston Globe Correspondent, Updated March 16, 2021, 9:34 a.m
The Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globe’s opinion staff announced Tuesday that they will launch The Emancipator, a new media platform that takes the name of a 201-year-old antislavery newspaper and seeks to shift the national conversation on racial justice.
The Emancipator, set to launch later this year, will build on the tradition that abolitionist newspapers began two centuries ago while attempting to further racial justice by amplifying important voices, arguments, and fact-based analysis, organizers said in a statement.
The Emancipator will feature original opinion and ideas writing, including contributions by top experts and community voices captured by student journalists. It will offer its content free to the public, with funding provided by philanthropic donors, according to the statement, which did not identify supporters. A spokeswoman for the Globe said more information would be released in the coming weeks.
bram X. Kendi, cofounder of The Emancipator and founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, hearkened back to the platform’s newsprint forebear in describing its mission.