Black history is increasingly shared through podcasts, short videos, and AI-generated images, and not all of it holds up. Popular tellings tend to center a handful of names and a handful of well-worn stories, which leaves room for simplified versions, invented quotes, and fabricated images to fill the gaps.
This raises a hard question for anyone who tells these stories: How do you share a lesser-known life without creating a new myth in the process? Even the best-known figures get flattened; scholar Jeanne Theoharis has argued that the popular image of Rosa Parks as an unassuming, accidental activist reduces a lifetime of organizing to one day on a bus. How do we test a popular claim against sources, give a person their full humanity, and adapt one story for a seven year old and for an adult without distorting it?
Join the MediaEd Club for a conversation with Crystal Marie, writer, producer, and narrator of UnderTold by CM, a podcast about the details we may not know in Black stories we think we know, and stories about people we may have never encountered in history class. Together we will listen to excerpts from episodes, examine how Crystal Marie chooses sources and guests, tests popular myths, and look behind the scenes at the tools and techniques she uses to produce the show. Crystal brings a background in psychology, theater, and marketing to the craft of storytelling. Bring a story you want to tell responsibly.
Date: Monday, November 2, 2026
Time: 12 pm EST | 6 pm CET | 10:30 pm IST
LOCATION: Register here for the webinar series.
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Recommended Media (please preview before attending)
- Podcast Episode: All Ears: Dovey Johnson Roundtree (UnderTold by CM, September 27, 2026), 22 min
- Podcast: UnderTold by CM
Optional Media (enrich your learning)
- Podcast: She Went to War, to Court, and the Pulpit: Dovey Roundtree with Dr. Sean Fling (UnderTold by CM, August 30, 2026), 95 min
- Podcast: Are Black People Just Eating the Scraps? Black Food with Dominique of Plots and Pans (UnderTold by CM, May 24, 2026), 68 min
- Interview: No Meekness Here: Meet Rosa Parks, 'Lifelong Freedom Fighter' (NPR, November 29, 2015)
- Lessons: Reading Like a Historian with Digital Literacy (Digital Inquiry Group, undated)
- Tool: Primary Source Analysis Tool and Teacher’s Guides (Library of Congress, undated)
- Essay: AI Threatens to Push Black History Back Underground (Blakfacts.org, January 1, 2025)
- News: AI-Generated Image in Ida B. Wells Tribute Sparks Backlash for Education Secretary Linda McMahon (Black Enterprise, by Mary Spiller, April 11, 2026)
- Book: Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation by Rayvon Fouché (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003)
Host: Dr. Wesley Fryer
Wesley Fryer, PhD, is a middle school STEM and media literacy middle school teacher at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina. As an educational technology “early adopter / innovator” since the late 1990s, Wes continues to share regularly on social media. Learn more on wesfryer.com.
Please get in touch with us if you want to suggest future Media Club meeting topics to discuss an article, book, podcast, video or any media related to our interests.
Dr. Wes Fryer, Webinar Series Manager | wes.fryer@providenceday.org
* AI Image (for this webinar) generated by Wes Fryer using Claude and Gemini.