By Deborah Bailey AFRO Contributing Editor dbailey@AFRO.com
Erica P. Loewe joined the Biden Administration as Director of African American media in Might of 2021 and adjusted the trajectory of lots of of media retailers inside the previous two years.
Born in South Carolina, Loewe spent her youth in Liberty Metropolis, Fla. and was remodeled by management roles as an intern throughout the Obama administration. She additionally held communication roles in workplaces of each Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA-43) and James Clyburn (D-SC-7) earlier than coming to the White Home to supervise Black media relations.
“This function has existed in earlier administrations, however the Biden-Harris administration is the primary to take an unprecedented entire of presidency strategy to advance racial fairness,” Loewe stated.
Loewe will quickly depart the White Home submit that has made her a family title at media websites all through the nation to function particular assistant to the president and chief of workers for the White Home Workplace of Public Engagement. There, she’s going to help Senior Advisor to the President for Public Engagement, Steve Benjamin, the previous mayor of Columbia, S.C.
“This function has existed in earlier administrations, however the Biden-Harris administration is the primary to take an unprecedented entire of presidency strategy to advance racial fairness.”
Loewe has actually been a one-woman process drive taking significantly the cost to supply unprecedented entry to the White Home in addition to interviews with members of the President’s Cupboard and different key White Home officers.
Within the two years she has directed the workplace, Loewe devoted herself to positioning Black media corporations on the forefront of the press pool at occasions starting from civil rights ceremonies to alternatives to main bulletins about financial investments.
“President Biden issued a mandate to workers : guarantee an inclusive and accessible atmosphere the place everybody has a seat on the desk. That’s what led me to this function. It has been a life altering expertise,” Loewe advised the AFRO.
And certainly, Loewe has supplied a seat on the desk to Black reporters and commentators from all kinds of media sources together with massive day by day publications, weekly print publications, R&B, hip hop and Black discuss radio stations, on-line information websites, and Black faith-based media.
Loewe has a deep information of the function of conventional Black owned publications. She understands the historical past of Black media – and actively advocates for sources like The AFRO to have a seat on the White Home desk.
“My father says, I’m an previous soul,” Erica said. “Severely, I keep in mind studying publications just like the Miami Instances and Jet Journal as a toddler and studying early simply how necessary Black newspapers are as a result of they inform tales we received’t learn wherever else,” she stated.
Loewe stated each Biden and Harris got here to the White Home with appreciation for Black media’s function as important group gatekeepers for generations.
“The president and vice chairman actually didn’t want me to alter their understanding of how necessary Black media is,” Loewe stated.
“One among my favourite quotes from President Biden is in reference to the homicide of Emmitt Until as a result of it actually sums up why he has positioned a lot emphasis on working with Black media,” Loewe advised the AFRO.
“‘The rationale the world noticed what Mrs. Until-Mobley noticed, was due to one other hero on this story– the Black Press,’” Loewe stated, quoting President Biden’s remarks on the White Home dedication of the Emmett Until Memorial in July.
Presidential advisors and veteran black press commented on the breadth of Loewe’s work with Black media from a spread of communities. Loewe organized a White Home press briefing for HBCU college students earlier this yr with Vice President Kamala Harris, the place college students broached a variety of matters.
“Erica P. Loewe has nearly single-handedly elevated the import of African-American media within the White Home,” stated Tony Allen, Ph.D, chair of the president’s board of advisors on HBCUs and president of Delaware State College.
Benjamin Chavis, CEO of the Nationwide Newspapers Publishers Affiliation, agreed, affirming Loewe’s function in elevating the profile of Black media and Black-owned media for individuals who don’t know the historical past.
“Erica has been an unbelievable asset and connection for Black media and Black-owned media to the White Home,” Chavis stated.
Ashleigh Fields, assistant editor of the AFRO, stated Loewe has achieved the purpose of making fairness.
“Erica is a go-getter, a promise keeper and a champion of the Black Press,” stated Fields. “As Director of African-American media, she has not solely elevated however evened the taking part in discipline for Black information retailers throughout the nation in flip creating extra inclusive and various protection of Joe Biden’s presidency.”
Every single day on the job has supplied Loewe a possibility to have a hoop aspect peek into historical past – each the bottom days in American historical past and the brightest moments.
“One among my favorites was taking part in a small function within the affirmation technique of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the primary Black lady ever to sit down on the Supreme Court docket,” Loewe stated.
“The hardest days are positively throughout nationwide moments of tragedy and hate stuffed violence,” Loewe added.
Simply after Loewe issued press bulletins in regards to the sixtieth Anniversary of the March on Washington, she was laborious at work issuing memos from the White Home and President Biden after new broke about the hate-fueled killing of three individuals in Jacksonville, Fla. at a Greenback Retailer simply down the road from metropolis’s solely HBCU, Edward Waters College.
In her new function Loewe will proceed to open doorways, ensuring the Black Neighborhood and different communities who haven’t at all times been invited in, really feel welcome on the White Home.
“The Workplace of Public Engagement is sometimes called the entrance door of the White Home,” Loewe stated. “Beneath the management of Steve Benjamin, I look ahead to persevering with our efforts to ensure various communities have direct entry to the assets being supplied by the Biden-Harris administration every day.”
