Alicia Walters, Founder, Echoing Ida

Jalen Kirkland: Alicia Walters is the Movement Building Director at Forward Together. Years ago during the reproductive justice movement, Alicia had an idea to create a media platform for Black women to be more visible in the media. When controversy about abortion, women’s rights, etc., would occur, she would constantly question, “Where were the black women leaders?” Black women weren’t being called on for their own stories and expertise during these movements. She presented her idea to Forward Together in October 2012 and then published 9 pieces. Alicia’s vision launched officially in January 2013 as the Black Women’s Media Collective. The site is now named “Echoing Ida” and it is thriving with twenty-three “Idas” all working together for more social change.

The organization is named after Ida B. Wells, a suffragist who documented and wrote her struggles in her own newspaper. Echoing Ida is honoring the woman before us because they “ have a duty and take that responsibility seriously. Striving to be an extension of that legacy.”

They have partnered with Black Lives Matter chapters across the country and “we recognize that most of these organizations are under resourced around strategic communications” The vision is to fill in the gaps to rebuild a stronger movement. Black women need to be supported to do the work of truth telling. This work is very vulnerable and risky but Echoing Ida is there to help publish these stories for the world to see. A lot of people think that their situations should be published in the New York Times or the Huffington Post but one must think of whom they want to reach.

Shaniece Curry: In her Thursday lecture Founder of Echoing Ida, Alicia Walters discussed some of the complications of Black women in the media and media production. As she explained Black women’s expertise has not been authentically valued in today’s media. She shares her personal example of being a Black woman from Spokane, Washington. As she jokingly puts it, it wasn’t until a white woman, Rachel Dolezal, who self identified as Black story became public that Black women from Spokane became recognized. As problematic as it is there is much truth in it. There are not many media outlets that seek to highlight the Black women’s contribution to society and seek to examine the ways in which Black women experience life in America. In addition Walters discussed the importance of an intersectional movement that incorporates trans women and the unique ways lgbqta women and fems experience Blackness in America. Walter explained that every opportunity that she has to miss she intentionally seeks to share it with other Idas, Black women and fems.

Remy Jewell: Speaking about the origins of Echoing Ida project, Alicia Walters pointed to the importance of ensuring that a variety of Black women’s voices were heard within the movement for reproductive justice. Often, Walters noted, “Black women were being talked about, but weren’t called upon to be spokespeople or experts.”   Echoing Ida stemmed from Walters’ understanding that the reproductive justice movement needed “leadership and heightened visibility across the country” and that in order to gain this heightened visibility, Black women needed a strong system of support to develop the skills to navigate a media landscape that often passes them by or ignores them.

Walters explained that Echoing Ida provided an extremely valuable sisterhood: a network of Black women who supported each other in developing the strength — but also maintaining the necessary vulnerability – needed to “break down the bastion of whiteness that is journalism and media” and to “understand the system in order to be able to play it, but also to subvert and transform it to allow it to reflect our communities.”

As Walters understood, the work of being a “truth teller” in the mainstream media is extremely difficult. Walters asked, “How do we share our visibility and opportunities? How can we relate to each other differently within an environment in which competition and scarcity try to keep us divided?” In working to maintain a sisterhood and a supportive community, it is clear that Echoing Ida grew out of the question, “How do Black women need to be supported to do the vulnerable, risky, hard work of truth telling?” Walters illustrated that Echoing Ida does far more than simply providing a web platform and the media knowledge necessary to make statements that reach audiences. Echoing Ida also supports Black women in “creat[ing] spaces where [they] are celebrating and acknowledging each other.”