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Alberto Ibargüen: ‘If Du Bois Were With Us Today…’

[I recently asked these four questions. Below is one reply, from Alberto Ibargüen. Please join the conversation either by tweeting @Digital_Du_Bois or by leaving a comment at the bottom of this or any other post on www.digitaldubois.net]

If Du Bois were with us today, he’d see equality and justice still need advocacy. And he would still need platforms and ways to get his message across. He would still need ways to engage his audience. 

He’d probably marvel at the chance to reach anybody – almost literally, anybody. Anybody with a computer. Anybody who could walk into a library. Anybody with a cellphone, never mind, anybody with a smart phone.

My bet: he’d call together the staff at his magazine, The Crisis, which still exists today. He’d tell them the way to organize is to shift from “I write/you read” to “We tell it the way we see it while inviting everyone to participate. Why? Because we now can…and figure out ways to make it easy.”

And he’d be amazed and delighted at the power and possibilities of the medium nobody can stop.

– Alberto Ibargüen
President and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

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