Author

Ryan S.

he/him/his or they/them/theirs.

Ryan has a diverse background including working at one of the nation’s most esteemed Black think tanks, one of Chicago’s top B2B Tech PR agencies, a top 3 global PR firm, and founding Kansas City’s largest Black-led direct action group during the 2020 uprisings. During Ryan’s professional career he’s consulted brands such as Facebook, Samsung, Amazon and Google.

He is a recipient of the Civil and Human Rights Award recognized by the Urban League of Kansas City, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and NAACP. He has also engaged in a number of public talks as a prison industrial complex Abolitionist thinker including on; NPR, PBS, a Kansas City Art Institute Lecture, a lecture at University of the Arts London, the Annual International Symposium (Digital Ethics for a Sustainable Society), as well as the T-Mobile Speaker Series.

Ryan's Latest Articles

Kansas City at Center of ICE Nationwide Concentration Camp Network

By ● National ●
ICE is eyeing to make Kansas City one of seven “mega centers” in its unprecedented concentration camp network. A local real estate company, Platform Ventures, may “sell out” Kansas City by selling a taxpayer-subsidized warehouse to make it happen. And federal agents are already terrorizing KC residents & going door-to-door.

Damning Transcript Exposes Truth Behind Holy Brunch Closure

By ● Editorial ●
What began as a federal RICO lawsuit has become one of Kansas City’s most explosive legal sagas. Now, Holy Brunch’s owner is blaming Black media for his closure and screenshotting a Black woman reporter in an expletive-laden Facebook diatribe. But court transcripts expose what he knew all along.

KC Defender & Urban League Join Forces: People’s Free Food Program Delivers to 100+ Black Families Across KC Metro

By ● Mutual Aid & Community Programs ●
This weekend, the KC Defender and Urban League delivered fresh food to over 100 Black families across Kansas City, sourced from the city’s last remaining full-service Black owned grocery store, to circulate our dollars back into our community. Each box included the KC Defender’s latest edition with investigative reporting, practical resources, and political education.

Concentration Camps, Human Trafficking, Gang Rapes: The Horrifying History Behind the Company Mayor Lucas & City Council Want to Build the World Cup Jail

By ● Justice ●
Kansas City politicians want to pay $25 million to a company co-owned by the military contractor that built Guantanamo Bay’s torture camps, trafficked twelve men to Iraq where one was beheaded on video and eleven executed, drugged and gang-raped a 19-year-old employee before locking her in a shipping container, and was sued for poisoning over 100,000 people with deadly chemicals—a Kansas City Defender investigation reveals.

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