The Journey

Shennell Barnes is a movement architect, author, journalist, and liberation strategist. She believes the story is not just narrative—it’s a radical tool for transformation. Across every platform she creates—film, community, policy, media—she activates silenced voices and reshapes systems that were never built to hold us. For Shennell, story is our method, and power is our outcome.

She is the founder of The Dear America Project, Project Ready, Be Ready, The Radical Reclamation Institute, and The Sanctuary, a first-of-its-kind in-person and digital hub for healing, leadership, and liberation. Through these platforms, she cultivates sacred spaces for collective wellness, political imagination, and generational transformation.

Shennell is also the creator and host of Dear America with Shennell Barnes, a national talk show and cultural platform dedicated to truth-telling, justice, and the future of our democracy. Her work as an author and journalist continues this mission—unearthing the stories of the disenfranchised and turning them into blueprints for change.

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She is the Executive Producer of the acclaimed documentary Dear America: A Letter from Black Women and the visionary behind its expansion into a multimedia movement. Her leadership spans decades of civic organizing, narrative strategy, and policy advocacy that places community wisdom at the center of change.​