Monolith Stories is a storytelling platform dedicated to illuminating the full complexity of Black experience. We collect, create, and amplify authentic Black narratives across books, podcasts, and more.
Although Black people have varying backgrounds, distinct interests, and a variety of viewpoints, we are often treated as a monolithic collective, virtually indistinguishable from one another. The consequences of that are real and documented.
Black people are overrepresented as perpetrators of violent crime in media coverage compared to actual arrest rates, and underrepresented in sympathetic roles as victims and heroes.
Negative stereotypes reduce self-esteem and expectations. They create stress and drain mental resources, leading to lowered performance in Black people of all ages.
Children begin absorbing stereotypes from an early age. Studies show that both Black and white children develop a strong and consistent pro-white bias before they even enter school.
Black children who never see themselves represented as scholars, leaders, and innovators internalize a diminished sense of what is possible for them.
Monolith Stories creates and curates content across multiple formats, all united by a single purpose: to nourish the souls of Black people everywhere while informing and inspiring the global community.
We tell individual stories of Black people whose lives challenge, complicate, and expand the narrow narratives the world has constructed about who we are. We create books that bring Black history and culture to families in accessible, engaging, and honest ways. We produce podcasts that go deeper into the stories that matter. And we build community around the conviction that being seen fully is not a luxury.
It is a right. Everything we create is guided by three words: Information. Inspiration. Impact.
I created Monolith Stories because I was tired of seeing Black people reduced to a handful of stories told the same way over and over again. Tired of a history that seemed to begin in suffering and struggle while the greatness that came before was left in the dark.I wanted to build something that nourishes Black people. That gives Black children a true picture of where they come from. That gives families a reason to gather and talk and remember together. And that tells the rest of the world the truth about a people whose contributions to humanity have been systematically minimized and ignored.This is that thing. We are just getting started.
