Â鶹AV

will give Â鶹AV’s annual Black History Month keynote address on Thursday, Feb. 11, at 7:30 p.m. This event will take place on Zoom and is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Register below.

Williams' talk is titled "Communicating Resistance: Messages and Movements in an Era of Polarization." The talk and additional Black History Month programming is sponsored by Sisterhood*.

At the intersection of social media, social justice, reality television, mass media, and how people of color use and are represented by these mediums is where you'll find Williams.

Williams has a particular interest in how Black people’s use of social media is changing social justice and the entertainment industry, especially television. She is also interested in and studies how marginalized people, especially Black women, are represented in the media. National media outlets including CNN, USA Today, Smithsonian Magazine, and Vice interviewed Williams for her social media expertise. She was also named one of  fierce Black feminists you should know.

For a decade Williams traveled to unfamiliar places to deliver stories that matter. Whether she stood in the middle of a Ku Klux Klan rally in Mississippi, a hostage situation at a hotel and a bank, the rural countryside of South Africa, or the streets of Cuba—Williams transported readers to new places and introduced them to interesting people.

Her journalism career started in 1999 at the Associated Press’ Jackson, Mississippi, bureau and she worked in three newsrooms for 10 years. Her coverage of communities of color earned the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists first place minority affairs reporting for two consecutive years. Williams was recognized by the for her work on how Black residents voted in Mississippi's state referendum to change the Confederate stars and bars from the state flag, and her contribution to a project about how Mississippi's poorest county reversed its fortune with casinos. She still contributes to national media outlets. Her work appeared in Self, Elle.com, NBC BLK, Ebony, Essence, Heart & Soul and Upscale.

As a professor and media researcher Williams’ work focuses on how marginalized groups, especially women of color, are portrayed in the media. Williams teaches journalism and storytelling classes as well as courses that examine the ways in which race, gender, class, and sexual identity are portrayed in the media.  

Williams earned a Ph.D. in mass communications and an M.A. in magazine, newspaper, and online journalism at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She also earned a B.A. in English with a concentration in journalism at Jackson State University.