Shanelle Matthews

Shanelle is an award-winning political communications strategist with a decade of experience in journalism, legislative, litigation, rapid response, and campaign communications. She serves as the Director of Communications for the Black Lives Matter Global Network, organizing to end state-sanctioned violence against Black people by building power and winning immediate improvements in our lives. She previously served as the Deputy Communications Director for the Sierra Club, where she led communications strategy for their flagship campaign, Beyond Coal. Before that, she worked as a strategist for the ACLU of Northern California on reproductive freedom and LGBTQ rights. In 2016, Shanelle developed Channel Black, an immersive training program that prepares the next generation of Black, millennial spokespeople to make critical, real-time interventions on race and racism in the United States through the media. She is also the founder of the Radical Communicators Network (RadComms), an online and offline community of people working within social change and public interest communications who are committed to taking a radical approach to winning. In the fall of 2017, Shanelle will join The New School as the inaugural Activist in Residence where she will work alongside faculty, and students to research and develop strategies that significantly reduce anti-Black bias. As an alumna of Progressive Women’s Voices, Shanelle has executed her training as a spokesperson in outlets like Al Jazeera and NPR. She holds a degree in Journalism and New and Online Media from the Manship School of Mass Communications at Louisiana State University. She lives and plays in Oakland.