Black stories matter. We have none. That is a problem. Our problem. 

We know in our small community there are all races of alumni; African-Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Middle Eastern Americans. 

Your stories matter. What you are up to, what you are doing now, how you got to where you are, matters, inspires, and educates.

To address this problem, the questions we are asking ourselves and reflecting on are: How can we better inspire black stories to be shared? How can we better inspire POC stories to be shared? How do we create a safer and more trustworthy space for these stories? How can we make ourselves a more trustworthy platform for black stories? What can we do to use our story-telling platform to create progress and change within our own communities?

We’re taking action.

Our plan:

1. Do our own research on how we can be a safer and more inclusive space for black stories. We’ll be reading about inclusive product design, inclusive marketing, and focus on black outreach to make sure that we are doing everything we can to send the message that www.townmag.co is a safe space for black alumni to share their story.

2. Black alumni marketing and outreach. We’ll be focusing on outreach to make sure all town networks know this is a space we can use to inspire and educate in our community. We just want to make sure our black community knows it’s here - something we have clearly failed to do.

3. Host a conversation. It’s time to have a conversation with our community about what we’re doing as a community to not only combat racism but make sure that leaders in the small town community are held accountable.

We’re sensitive to the fact that sharing your story, writing it, editing it, sending it in, takes work on your end, and you’re most likely exhausted. No worries, our goal is to make sure alumni know we are here as a platform for your story to inspire current WHS students when you’re ready, if ever, to share your story. We’ll be excited to celebrate it.

Black lives matter, black stories matter.