Don Rojas
Director of Communications & International Relations (IBW)
Don Rojas is a veteran journalist and mass communications executive and the Director of Communications and International Relations for the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) and the originator of the Black World Media Network (MWMN). Before joining IBW in 2013, Mr. Rojas served as Executive Director and CEO of Free Speech TV, a Denver-based, multiplatform, national media network.
Miscellaneous Accomplishments:
- Mr. Rojas possesses a unique combination of communications expertise and experiences spanning a long career in print, broadcast and Internet media as well as international diplomacy. Over the course of his career he has traveled and worked extensively in the USA, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
- He was the former press secretary to the late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada from 1979-1983 and the first press secretary to any Caribbean head of state.
- He led the New York Amsterdam News as its executive editor in the early 1990s. The Amsterdam News is the largest and most influential African-American newspaper in the nation.
- He was the general manger of Pacifica Radio station WBAI in New York from 2002-2005 and led the station to record membership drives.
- He established a communications department for the NAACP (National HQ) in the early 1990s and became the first director of communications for the country’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.
- He was recently featured in a chapter in the book “The Black Digital Elite—African American Leaders of the Information Revolution” by John Barber. The book contains chapters of other black media pioneers such as Richard Parsons, CEO of Time-Warner, Robert L. Johnson, founder of BET and William Kennard, former chairman of the FCC.
- In 1999 he was named one of the ‘Silicon Alley Dozen’, a group of Internet CEOs pioneering new media developments in New York City.
- In 1996 Mr. Rojas launched and ran The Black World Today, a pioneering news and commentary site on the Web.
- In the mid 1990s he was contracted by the National Council of Churches (NCC) to co-ordinate a very successful media campaign to draw the nation’s and the world’s attention to a spate of hate-motivated arsons of dozens of African-American churches throughout the southern states of the USA. The campaign resulted in scores of stories, commentaries and editorials in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other leading newspapers and on all the major television networks. The media campaign also resulted in the NCC’s ability to raise millions of dollars from the public to assist in the rebuilding of the destroyed churches and led to the strengthening of federal and state laws against hate crimes.
- He has interviewed presidents and prime ministers of African, Caribbean and Latin American countries as well as civil and human rights leaders in the USA and around the world.
- He was the only African-American journalist to cover the first summit meeting between Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev in Geneva in 1986.
- Created the first Internet Radio Network (Black World Radio) targeting people of color with news, commentaries and musical entertainment.
- Taught courses and lectured on the history of journalism and on minorities in the media at Long Island University’s School of Journalism, the University of the West Indies and Charles University in Prague. Lectured on Caribbean and Central American politics at Columbia University in New York, McGill University in Canada, London University, the University of Manchester in England and the Sorbonne in France.
- He assisted the President of IBW, Dr. Ron Daniels, in organizing and then participated in a historic Symposium in Washington DC in October, 2013 on the subject of “Democracy & Development in Africa and the Caribbean.”
- Mr. Rojas has edited four books of history and critical commentary about Grenada.
Dr. Ron Daniels
President
Veteran social and political activist Dr. Ron Daniels was an independent candidate for President of the United States in 1992. He served as E_xecutive Director of the National Rainbow Coalition in 1987 and Southern Regional Coordinator and Deputy Campaign Manager for the Jesse Jackson for President Campaign in 1988. He holds a B.A. in History from Youngstown State University, an M.A. in Political Science from the Rockefeller School of Public Affairs in Albany, New York and a Doctor of Philosophy in Africana Studies from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati. Dr. Daniels is a Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus at York College, City University of New York where he taught courses in Political Science.
From 1993-2005 Dr. Daniels served as first African American Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). During his tenure CCR emerged as a major force fighting against police brutality and misconduct, church burnings, hate crimes, voter disenfranchisement, environmental racism and the threats to civil liberties posed by the government’s response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.
In June of 1995, Dr. Daniels led an African American fact finding and support delegation/mission to Haiti. As a result of the visit, the Haiti Support Project (HSP) was created to mobilize ongoing political and material support for the struggle for democracy and development in Haiti. HSP has emerged as the leading African American organization working to build a constituency for Haiti in the U.S.
A prolific essayist and commentator, Dr. Daniels’ column Vantage Point appears in numerous Black and progressive newspapers and web sites nationwide. He also the host of a weekly issue-oriented public affairs talk show (Vantage Point Radio) on WBAI, 99.5 FM on the Pacifica Network in New York and until recently, he served as an occasional Guest Host for Make It Plain with Mark Thompson, SIRIUSXM Radio.
Dr. Daniels is Founder and President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a progressive, African centered, action-oriented Resource Center dedicated to empowering people of African descent and marginalized communities. As the administrator for the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), IBW has emerged as a leading organization within the U.S. and global reparations movements. NAARC has devised a 10 Point Reparations Program and is a stanch support of HR-40, the Congressional Bill that would establish a National Commission to study reparations proposals for Afric