Last month, the Schomburg Center newsroom hosted its first public story circle on a question that has long simmered in the community: who gets to tell Harlem's story, and who profits from it?

The conversation was prompted by a series of articles in a national publication about "Harlem's renaissance" — articles that focused on new restaurants, boutique hotels, and young professionals moving in, with barely a mention of the longtime residents being priced out.

"Every few years, some magazine discovers Harlem," said Aisha Williams, a community journalist and contributor to this newsroom. "They send a photographer to shoot the brownstones and a writer who talks to the new wine bar owner. The people who've been here for 50 years are just backdrop."

Twelve participants gathered in the Schomburg's community room for the discussion, which lasted nearly two hours. The conversation ranged from frustration with outside media to concrete ideas for what community-controlled storytelling could look like.

Several participants pointed to the legacy of Black newspapers — the Amsterdam News, the New York Age, the People's Voice — as models for the kind of journalism they want to see.

"We had our own media before any of these publications existed," said one participant. "The question isn't whether we can tell our own story. The question is whether we'll build the infrastructure to do it again."

The Schomburg Center newsroom plans to publish a monthly bulletin starting in April, with stories reported and written by community members.