The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is pleased to announce that Sandra Dawson Long Weaver, a co-founder of the organization, has been named the project coordinator for the NABJ-Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Black Press Grant Program.

The program provides grants up to $10,000 to Black-owned media or freelance journalists to support coverage of how COVID-19 has affected the Black community and the K-12 education system. The grant term is March 2021-December 2021.

“As the first female African American managing editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer and an active member of the Black Press, Founder Sandra Dawson Long Weaver knows first hand the importance of ensuring that the voices of the Black community have a platform,” said NABJ President Dorothy Tucker. “With a journalism career spanning more than 40 years, we are honored that she is lending her expertise and experience to this impactful program.”

Long Weaver has been the editorial director of the Tennessee Tribune in Nashville since 2012. She also continues to work to develop the next generation of storytellers as the adviser at The Meter, the student publication at Tennessee State University. In addition to her role as managing editor, she previously served as the vice president for news at the Inquirer and the Daily News. The immediate past chair of the Board of Directors of the Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center, Long Weaver also served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize. The Nashville chapter of NABJ has created a scholarship in her name for students pursuing degrees in journalism. She is an NABJ Hall of Fame inductee and currently serves as the chair of the NABJ Founders Task Force.

“I am looking forward to working with the applicants as they seek to tell their stories and present the varied ways Black Americans have been affected by COVID-19,” Long Weaver said. “The grant can be life-changing and help find solutions to some of the issues revealed through the pandemic, such as how Black students have been affected as many of them have been learning remotely for over a year. This is also an exciting opportunity for the Black Press to have the support needed to do deeper and ongoing reporting on how the Black community has been changed by the pandemic.”

Long Weaver noted that the program is also unique in that it allows freelancers across all platforms to have more time to spend on researching stories that are not being told through any other medium.

Joining Long Weaver on this project are the following committee members: NABJ Black Press Task Force Co-chair Tene Croom, NABJ Vice President-Print Kathy Chaney, and NABJ’s Director of Finance Nathaniel Chambers.

Applications are available here and are approved on a rolling basis. Long Weaver and the committee members will review the grant applications as they are submitted. Companies and individuals applying for the grant should supply as much detail as possible about how and where the stories will be presented. The stories can be presented across all platforms: print, digital, video, and audio. A detailed budget must be included with the application.

Media Contact: press@nabj.org