Students in the course “Diversity in Media” in the School of Journalism at the University of Montana have initiated the Montana Race Project: Everyone Has a Story. The students are asking all 47,000 students at the 16 state university campuses and seven tribal colleges to submit a six-word essay on the topic of race. Any resident of Montana is also invited to share their six-word story.
Larry Abramson, dean of the School of Journalism, said that “through this project, journalism students are helping to create a proactive, honest conversation about a topic that can be very difficult to discuss. I encourage all Montanans to share their experiences or reflections on race with our students as they work to put classroom lessons to work in our communities.”
Kathy Weber-Bates, instructor of the diversity in media class at the university, added that “as a class, our students are testing whether the old adage, ‘everyone has a story’ holds true when it comes to the racial experiences of Montanans. Our goal is not simply to study how to tell untold stories in the classroom but to actually give all Montanans a platform where those stories can be shared.”
The University of Montana initiative is similar to a nationwide effort by the Race Card Project. You can view some of that effort’s six-word essays here.
We invite readers to submit their own six-word essay on race by using the comments board at the bottom of this post.
