Black Masculinities and the Media: An Interview with Filmmaker and Activist Byron Hurt

In this interview, Byron Hurt reflects on his career and how he has become a prominent activist, speaker, filmmaker, and writer about media's roles in shaping Black identities and culture, especially constructions of Black masculinity. In addition to detailing his career trajectory, Hurt discusses many important topics: his inspiration to make films, the power of filmmaking to make cultural change, the filmmaker's place within a documentary, changing notions of Black masculinity, the constraints advertising and media place on Black men and boys to define their manhood, Black men's assertion of power over Black women, intersectionality, digital media's possibilities for more diverse expressions of Black identity, his current and future projects, advice for advertisers on how to represent people of color, and the importance of providing contextual details when representing a particular group of people or a controversial topic.