Narrative Changer
Ronda Racha Penrice
Writer/Historian
Independent/Solopreneur
@rondaracha
Bio of a Narrative Changer: Ronda Racha Penrice is a Chicago native, with deep Mississippi roots, whose published writing career spans over 20 years, but my love affair with books started when I was just three years of age. Throughout school, I indulged this passion, racking up many library fines in the process. From middle school to early high school, I prided myself on reading a book a day. I just loved to read! I believe that's how I really got into Columbia in New York! There, as an English and History major, I began pursuing my interest in Black life and culture, picking my own topics and independently researching them. My love and adoration for the work of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston led me to independently study at the graduate level at NYU. Around this time, I also worked at the M.I.T. Alumni Center of New York which taught me a lot about technology. It was very exciting. I also began working with the game-changing publication The Quarterly Black Review of Books as the publishing industry was in the midst of the onslaught of such popular Black writers as Terry McMillan and E. Lynn Harris. This was a period of great education and I was exposed to incredible re-issues about everything from Duke Ellington and Adam Clayton Powell to trailblazing Black artists and Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War that impacts my work to this day. My desire to explore my Southern roots led to me leaving NYC. Mississippi, where I spent so much of my childhood. I enrolled in the Southern Studies program at the University of Mississippi and began delving into the Black Southern experience. I discovered the work of Ernest Gaines and added him to the repertoire of writers I studied. I also participated in research projects involving the Mississippi Delta region and the first licensed Black midwife in the state of Mississippi and spent countless hours talking with my grandparents, born and raised Mississippians who are no longer with me. After grad school, my life took a dramatic change as I became Associate Editor of Rap Pages in Los Angeles. It was a great time and L.A. was full of new experiences, particularly in film and television. Moving on from there, I freelanced a lot and eventually became the main West Coast contributor for Essence.com where one of my most memorable experiences was doing one of the first major interviews of Jamie Foxx for Any Given Sunday. I knew that was a breakout role for him and would help make him a movie star. Plucked from the freelance life where I specialized in covering Black Hollywood to work as a film publicist for Roz Stevenson Public Relations was also life-changing. With RSPR, I contributed my expertise to campaigns targeting Black moviegoers for such films as Nutty Professor 2, Bring It On, How High and The Fast and the Furious and loved it! After a few years, however, I did miss my editorial roots and was scooped up by Upscale magazine, which meant I had to leave sunny L.A. for not as sunny Atlanta. As Associate Editor and later Editor-At-Large, I oversaw editorial as well as penned stories on everything from celebrities to fitness plus I traveled a bit. When that chapter ended, I found myself further indulging my love of television by manning my own television column Remote Control for AOL Black Voices, after working with Africana.com, I later contributed television coverage to EbonyJet.com under the wonderful direction of Terry Glover, who we sadly lost to cancer a few years ago. To this day, I cherish the piece I wrote there celebrating the genius of Bernie Mac. During this time, I was also a frequent contributor to Atlanta's Creative Loafing primarily covering music. Somehow I also added UPTOWN magazine to my resume serving as Atlanta Regional Editor and eventually Deputy Editor during a tenure that spanned from 2005 to 2014. I was also a healthy contributor to UPTOWNMagazine.com. There my main focus was luxury lifestyle targeting affluent Black Americans which included covering everything from travel and automotive to food and entertainment as well as shaping copy. During this period, I also authored African American History For Dummies, published in 2007, which was truly life-changing. Writing a hip Black history book that embraced popular culture was just amazing. It still feeds my soul to this day. Beginning in 2009, I became a robust contributor to theGrio where my research skills and expertise in Black history and culture meshed well with my knowledge of Black popular culture. Today I regularly contribute film and television coverage to The Root where I have amazing conversations with incredible talent like Wendy Calhoun, a co-executive producer of Empire, Joe Morton, Courtney B. Vance, the lovely Cush Jumbo and more for informative Q&As. Recently I began working as an entertainment contributor to Urban News Service, which syndicates to over 150 Black publications and am hard at work on a Hollywood series that exposes trends in the industry as well as introduces people to behind the scenes players not always in the limelight. In all, my work has been featured in every major Black publication as well as mainstream ones like The Daily Beast. Over the years, I have also appeared on numerous radio programs as well as popped up on CNN, MSNBC and more. I still live in Atlanta and am working on forthcoming book projects focusing on Black history, television, sports and travel, plus threatening to really develop my rondarachapenrice.com website. I am already super active on social media, which I feel is a powerful medium to exchange information and ideas.
How is your work changing the narrative? I strive to change the narrative by doing my part to popularize Black history and culture. There is so much we don't know or take for granted and this is true even for the highly educated among us. I am so pleased by the increasing mainstreaming of our history because it is essential history for all Americans and not just Black Americans. We have contributed so much to this country in particular and every day I discover new and exciting stuff. My work is also important because I get to capture new stories and history as well as share old ones. I want to leave a footprint of the here and now and before that the me of fifty and hundred years from now will find useful because I know how essential these very things have been for me in my life and work. Flipping through the pages of Opportunity magazine, which Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes both contributed, is just surreal. Also Carter G. Woodson's work is influential as well as work from W.E.B. DuBois like The Philadelphia Negro. Right now I am researching Black businesswomen because it is important that we acknowledge more than Madam CJ Walker. Love her but she was far from the only one. Ultimately I want to change the narrative by helping to paint a fuller picture of the past and present so that the future is even greater.
How is your work changing the narrative? I strive to change the narrative by doing my part to popularize Black history and culture. There is so much we don't know or take for granted and this is true even for the highly educated among us. I am so pleased by the increasing mainstreaming of our history because it is essential history for all Americans and not just Black Americans. We have contributed so much to this country in particular and every day I discover new and exciting stuff. My work is also important because I get to capture new stories and history as well as share old ones. I want to leave a footprint of the here and now and before that the me of fifty and hundred years from now will find useful because I know how essential these very things have been for me in my life and work. Flipping through the pages of Opportunity magazine, which Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes both contributed, is just surreal. Also Carter G. Woodson's work is influential as well as work from W.E.B. DuBois like The Philadelphia Negro. Right now I am researching Black businesswomen because it is important that we acknowledge more than Madam CJ Walker. Love her but she was far from the only one. Ultimately I want to change the narrative by helping to paint a fuller picture of the past and present so that the future is even greater.