By Christina Norris<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NABJ Monitor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Birmingham Association of Black Journalists President Carla Wade relocated to Birmingham from Las Vegas in 2020, she didn\u2019t realize that NABJ had chosen Birmingham as the convention site for 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Steve Crocker, the former president of BABJ, was a part of the team that lobbied for years to bring the convention to the city, along with the current Treasurer, Roy S. Johnson. Crocker says the board\u2019s decision to select Birmingham – a deviation from larger cities usually selected –\u00a0for the convention was \u201cGod\u2019s timing\u201d along with affordability, the city\u2019s progress, and, most importantly, its Civil Rights history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can\u2019t forget our ties to history,\u201d said Crocker. \u201cThere are so many people who are still walking around who were integral parts of major moments of the Civil Rights movements of the \u201960s.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wade, a transplant from Nevada, said a lot of African Americans in the West and Northeast have roots in the South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo they felt like this was a kind of a way of bringing those people back to kind of where a lot of their origins are from,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although she is newer to the BABJ chapter, Wade was and still is excited to work with the NABJ convention committee and help convention attendees return to their roots. She says the NABJ board is BABJ\u2019s \u201cbiggest cheerleader\u201d in the planning process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnytime we\u2019ve had a question, anytime we\u2019ve needed support, they have been like, beyond helpful,\u201d Wade said. \u201cI don\u2019t think even as a host chapter if you really want to put your best foot forward, you can\u2019t possibly do it without the support of the board of directors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Convention co-chairs Tia Mitchell and Glenn Rice are empowering the NABJ Task Forces not only to meet their members\u2019 programming needs but also to reflect on Birmingham\u2019s history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe worked really hard on making sure that no matter what type of journalist you are, whether you\u2019re print or broadcast or digital, no matter what your beat is, no matter whether you\u2019re a student or early career or mid-career or late career, whether you\u2019re an educator or a manager, we really want to make sure there was programming for everybody,\u201d Mitchell said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To them, an NABJ Convention means returning to a sense of friendship and family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve been a member for close to 35 years, and you get to see faces that you know, that you haven\u2019t seen in quite some time,\u201d Rice said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitchell is always surprised by who she sees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can\u2019t keep track of who was coming and not coming on any given year,\u201d she said. \u201cBut you\u2019ll be walking down the hallway, and you\u2019ll see someone you haven\u2019t seen in forever, or like you might not have seen someone but hear a scream and a squeal, and someone has made a connection with someone they haven\u2019t seen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Birmingham also offers proximity for the many NABJ members who live in the South, and it is less expensive than some bigger cities, Mitchell said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping this year there are there will be a lot of people who either it\u2019s their first convention in a while, or maybe their first convention ever, but having it in a city that\u2019s a little bit more accessible and a little bit more affordable has allowed them to come to have that NABJ experience for themselves,\u201d Mitchell said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only are NABJ and BABJ working together to host this convention, but the city of Birmingham is helping through sponsorships and recommendations for visitors, such as the 16th Street Baptist Church and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wade is aware that most people not from the South view Birmingham through the black-and-white lens of the Civil Rights Movement and the horrors that occurred there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe wanted people to get a chance to experience the new Birmingham that has so many Black entrepreneurs, the Birmingham that\u2019s led by an African American mayor, and I think at one time the police chief and fire chief were both African Americans,\u201d Wade said. \u201cI mean, there are major companies here that are headed up by African Americans. And I think that\u2019s something that a lot of people just aren\u2019t aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wade also thinks there\u2019s a place for Black journalists in \u201cThe New Birmingham.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs a Black journalist, I\u2019ve gotten to do stories here that I have pitched for years in other newsrooms, and never — you know, those stories got shut down,\u201d she said. \u201cThe majority of our audience is white. They don\u2019t care about that. So, I do think that there\u2019s definitely a lot of support for black journalists in this market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Janet Pugh, a weekend morning producer for WBRC FOX 6 News in Birmingham, is excited to attend her first convention in the city where she works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor it to be in Birmingham, in my home city, like I said, it feels like I\u2019m right in my backyard learning everything I can about the world,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n University of Alabama student Kenneth Kelly said it\u2019s an opportunity for him and his friends to make a convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith it just being an hour up the road from campus,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gives a lot of our students and members at our NABJ student chapter the opportunity to come in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Christina Norris NABJ Monitor When the Birmingham Association of Black Journalists President Carla Wade relocated to Birmingham from Las Vegas in 2020, she didn\u2019t realize that NABJ had chosen Birmingham as the convention site […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,399],"tags":[400,409,33],"class_list":{"0":"post-2954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-features","8":"category-nabj23","9":"tag-birmingham","10":"tag-civil-rights","11":"tag-nabj"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2956,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2954\/revisions\/2956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabjmonitor.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}