Spelman College alumna Najja Parker introduces her audience to African-American culture

Allowing herself to find the right path, Spelman alumna Najja Parker introduces her audience to African-American culture through journalism.

Parker came to Spelman College in 2008 from Memphis looking to change her surroundings and live around African-American success.

“I just wanted to get out of Tennessee completely, so Atlanta was a faster pace for me and I wanted to be around black success because they consider this city to be a Black Mecca,” she said.

Upon arriving to Spelman College, Parker went through different majors.

“When you are a teenager and in your 20s, a lot of times, you're still trying to figure things out. I just kind of allowed myself to try different things, until I learned ... something that was a good fit for me,” Parker said.

In the beginning, she was an education major; however, during her freshman year, the college discontinued the education major. Having had a passion for writing and storytelling, she decided to try English.

With her English major, Parker said that she did not feel completely satisfied with her work, which is how she became a double major in English and Theater & Performance.

“I wanted to feel more creative and do something that was a bit more hands-on so one of my friends ... was like, ‘You should come over to the theater. We're working on this play and just kind of see what you think.’ I loved it. I fell in love with everything about it,” Parker recalled.

It was her love for storytelling that peeked her interest in journalism. “Anything that I’ve done has involved a lot of storytelling. I kind of felt like journalism was like storytelling,” Parker stated. “That’s kind of what inspired me to get into it.”

Parker did not feel fully prepared to enter the work force after graduating from Spelman College, so she decided to go to Columbia College Chicago for graduate school.

“At that point, I only had one internship within the journalism field back at home at a Memphis news station and I didn't feel prepared,” Parker stated. “I figured let me go learn a little bit more so I could feel more prepared by the time I do try to apply for jobs.”

Parker did not get a job immediately after graduate school, but she did not let that discourage her. She applied for different internships before landing her position at Jet magazine.

Eventually, she was offered a full-time position at Jet magazine through Kyra Kyles, who was one of the senior editors at the time.

According to Parker, Kyles is one of the most influential people in her career. Kyles gave Parker her first job in the industry and believed in her from the start.

“Najja is a very diligent, conscientious and dedicated professional. I noticed early how attentive she was to detail and how talented she was at interviewing, writing and hitting deadlines,” Kyles said. “She was, and is, a great journalist with a wonderful personality and outlook. I was happy to give anyone with that level of talent and heart an opportunity, and she certainly didn't disappoint.”

After spending three years in Chicago working at both Jet and Ebony magazines, she returned to Atlanta and began working with the Atlanta- Journal Constitution. Learning from her previous positions, she immediately expressed interest in wanting to do on-camera work.

“When I interviewed, that's something that I brought up. So again, that's me expressing interest that I like on camera work, so I just started finding opportunities to do that,” Parker said.

She interviewed a variety of different people on-camera, such as Michael B. Jordan, Yara Shahidi and Michael Ealy.

Considering herself still new to the world of journalism, Parker’s main challenge is balancing between doing what she wants versus what she is paid to do.

“It's really about balancing your time. Again, some weeks I do a good job with it and some weeks I don’t. This past week was dedicated to what they pay me for. The next week — now that things have kind of slowed down — hopefully, I have a better balance.”

In her future, Parker sees herself branching into a different form of storytelling. “I probably see myself on different platforms, like Spotify or Netflix, creating content for them,” Parker said.

Knowing the challenges that a young journalist could face, Parker offered advice to the next generation of journalists. “I would tell you to network as much as possible ... and not being afraid to try things on your own,” Parker said.

Another piece of advice she had for budding journalists is to establish themselves and figure out exactly what they want to do in their field.

“Once you figure out exactly what you want to do in a field, [it] is going to really take you far because you have a really laser focus vision of the kind of coverage you want to do,” she said.