About Us
We are Black Californians researching, visualizing, writing, publishing, and dreaming about a thriving future full of possibilities for all Black Californians.
Mapping Black California’s integrated, solutions driven approach leverages data to identify and amplify systemically induced racism and inequities across all regions and socioeconomic communities providing a more holistic view of overlooked and hard-to-reach populations.
The Goal is Simple: To provide reliable data and contribute to change efforts.
Our work empowers the greater Black California population and our extensive partnership network with data enhanced information, spurs policy changes, magnifies strategic civic campaign deployments, and bolsters Black-led, Black-guided, and Black-driven social justice initiatives in Black communities across the Golden State.
Team Bios
Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds
Founder
Dr. Paulette Brown-Hinds is founder of Voice Media Ventures, publisher of Black Voice News, a Stanford University JSK Sr Journalism Fellow, and an advocate for community media. As second generation publisher of Black Voice News (BVN), Paulette is transforming the half century old weekly print outlet into a solutions-oriented data journalism and justice-focused community news organization. She is leading the transformation to data reporting through two BVN projects: Mapping Black California and DaHUB. Structured within a community mapping framework, Mapping Black California, encourages community collaboration around data and information by bringing together community media, community based organizations, and educational institutions. And as a JSK Journalism Fellow she is working on an information project to make solutions-focused data reporting accessible to smaller news organizations serving California’s diverse communities.
Candice Mays
Project Director
Candice Mays serves as Mapping Black California’s Project Director. Alongside a diverse professional background in grassroots nonprofit organization management, development, and grant making, she spent three years as a literacy teacher with the New York City Department of Education after receiving her M.A. in English Education from New York University. Her time as a public school educator inspired her pursuit of an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Fiction at the University of Miami where was a Michener Teaching Fellow and a M.F.A. Summer Award winner. Her research experience includes conducting cultural and historical analysis of Louisiana Creoles reflecting the content of her fiction which critically examines multi-cultural, African American existence in non-inclusive spaces. Having returned to Southern California and her beloved Riverside County, Candice seeks to humanize GIS by mining narratives from data on all things historical, Californian, and most importantly, Black.
Alex Reed
Project Manager
Alex Reed is a project manager for Mapping Black California and provides support as a data researcher and visualizer for its many initiatives. In her broader practice she operates under the tagline A Jane of All Trades, working at the intersection of data and storytelling seeking to create moments where a user, reader, or student finds themselves engaged with and engrossed in information that they may have previously thought was beyond their reach. As a data activist, Alex has been able to address issues that range from disparities in health and education to social justice and civil rights battles for a variety of institutions, The Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Mellon University and WorldStage, Inc. to name a few. As a media and projection designer, she has contributed to several large-scale productions, installations and award shows such as the OBIE Awards, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Ragtime: On the Move; she brings that experience in technology and composition to each new endeavor.
