[Re]Creating Media for Black Girls

Sheri K. Lewis, a recent UIUC PhD from Chicago's South Side, traced how she built MELT, a Black girl-centered magazine and creative platform. She recounted earlier youth organizing at Franklin and Urbana middle schools, the "Meltdown" art exhibit, a 2017-18 production cycle with 33 teens and no funding, the one-day photo shoot where girls controlled set design and camera work, and the tensions around beauty, writing in first person, and respectability. She critiqued mentoring and the nonprofit funding model, then took audience questions.