What is #ShareTheMicNow campaign? How is it related to the Black Lives Matter movement?

On June 10, 2020, nearly 46 African-American female activists, celebrities, entrepreneurs and journalists took over Instagram handles of 46 White performers, celebrities, fashion designers and athletes. They united in solidarity under #ShareTheMicNow social media campaign. Celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ariana Huffington, Kourtney Kardashian etc relinquished their Instagram accounts for 46 African-American women.

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What is Share The Mic Now?

A promotional poster for the campaign was shared by one of its participants, Katie Couric, a well known American journalist. The poster mentions #ShareTheMicNow’s mission statement. As mentioned in the poster of the campaign, it aims to provide African-American women a bigger platform, so that their voices can be heard. Hence, White Women with a large following on Instagram will provide them with this platform, by handing over their accounts to these African-American women.

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#ShareTheMicNow aims at magnifying the work that these African-American women are doing, which will help to bring a societal change. The participants believe that this change will help address the issue of racism and sexism in society. Currently, #ShareTheMicNow has been limited to Instagram, but, it is soon expected to spread to other social media platforms as well. The campaign planners have estimated that this campaign will help the participating African-American women to reach out to a total audience of 300 million on Instagram. #ShareTheMicNow campaign was started in the wake of the Minneapolis man, George Floyd’s death and is being considered as an offshoot of Black Lives Matter, an international human rights campaign.

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Here is a list of #ShareTheMicNow’s participants

From the official #ShareTheMicNow Instagram page, an official list of participants has been released. White American celebrities who have participated in the campaign include writer Elizabeth Gilbert, athletes Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, Senator Elizabeth Warren, actors Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Roberts. While some African American women who have participated include the former Teen Vogue editor Elaine Welteroth, “I’m Still Here” author Austin Channing Brown, Professor Brittney Cooper and transgender rights activist Angelica Ross.

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Who started #ShareTheMicNow?

#ShareTheMicNow was created by Luvvie Ajayi Jones, who is an author and podcast host. Glennon Doyle, the founder of 'Together Rising' is also behind the campaign. Stacey Bendet, the women behind 'alice+olivia', is also a founding member of the campaign. Share The Mic Now founders are also encouraging non-celebrities to recreate this action, in their own lives. They can use the hashtag #KeepSharingTheMic. In an interview given to the media website, the founders revealed the four specific goals of the project.

• To form a social media campaign that magnifies Black women’s lives and stories. 
• To form relationships among Black women and white women — so that our future activism is born from relationships. 
• To create a network of disruptors who know and trust each other. 
• To create an action that could make a change.

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