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What You Need to Know:
Throughout history, our youth have been the leaders of change, making a difference in the communities in which they live. Today, the same rings true.
Kamaya Truitt-Martin, is using the power of radio to address food deserts, police brutality within schools and more in her community, including mentoring younger leaders in Durham, North Carolina high schools, and HBCUs.
As Director of New Talent and Community Partnerships with North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, Truitt-Martin teaches young people not only how to work in radio but also how to tell stories about what matters to them. Currently, she and her five team members are teaching high schoolers how to create public service announcements and action-based plans for solutions at their schools, including curriculum changes, youth advisory boards, and partnering with community organizations. Truitt-Martin is also leading a spring internship program with WUNC for HBCU students.
In addition to the work in the community, the 26-year-old is working to foster change within her workplace. She leads the school’s anti-racism committee, trains staff, and implements solutions to combat racism. Through monthly discussion groups, colleagues discuss racism in the news and media and work through their own organizational trauma to become a better, more anti-racist institution.
As the backlash of critical race theory continues to plague schools and universities nationwide, Truitt-Martin finds this work her most challenging yet.
“We started back in 2020, and it was really hard breaking through White fragility and making clear that you may be well-intentioned, but you’re being racist because of the microaggressive things that you do or implicit bias that you have,” she explained. She adds getting people to admit their racist tendencies made her efforts difficult in the beginning but has gotten better over time.
Time has moved fast for Truitt-Martin. For more than 10 years, she has worked with WUNC, first as a youth reporter, moving on to youth mentor, and now, youth director. Despite her sometimes tiring days, she says she’s proud to see the fruits of her labor when she goes out into the community.
“We’ve been doing the youth reporting institute for eight years now and every year it’s really nice to hear from not only our White listening base but from folks who would have never listened to WUNC at all, to hear their brothers, sisters, cousins on the radio talking about a community we rarely hear about is affirming to hear, like, yeah, we did that.”
Go to WUNC.org to learn more about the programs and new podcast.
