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Malkia Amala Cyril

Director


Malkia Amala Cyril is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, CA.- a national media strategy and action center building a powerful grassroots movement for racial and economic justice through media change.  Key projects include the Media Justice Movement-Building Initiative, the Justice Communications Initiative, as well as training and tools to help grassroots organizers and leaders become better strategic storytellers and media activists.

Malkia’s history as a media and movement strategist is informed by h/er organizing and communications work at We Interrupt This Message and the Applied Research Center, the Community Organizing Team, Youth Together, and the Youth Force Coalition in the SF Bay Area.

As a queer, working class African-Am/Caribbean born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Malkia’s belief in media change as a core strategy for social justice is based in her experience as the daughter of a black panther mom. “I watched how media bias helped destroy a movement, and I believe in the power of strategic stories to help raise it again.”

Malkia is author of numerous articles on movement-building, political organizing, strategic communications, and media policy change, and creative works in anthologies such as Aloud, Afrekete, and In the Tradition. As an artist, organizer, and communications strategist- Malkia hopes h/er leadership and commitment to struggle speaks beautifully and humbly for itself.