HEATDRAWN’s The Thread Partners with AfroLA for Black History Month Editorial Collaboration
Los Angeles, CA — HEATDRAWN Media announces a February 2025 editorial partnership between The Thread, its AI-powered narrative publication, and AfroLA, the award-winning nonprofit newsroom serving Black communities across Los Angeles.
Throughout Black History Month, AfroLA and The Thread will collaborate on a four-part series highlighting everyday Angelenos whose lives shaped their communities, but whose stories often go unrecorded outside of obituaries and family memory.
The partnership aligned with both organizations’ missions: AfroLA’s commitment to solutions-oriented reporting centering Black communities, and The Thread’s approach to responsibly using artificial intelligence to surface overlooked human stories from obituary archives.
Each week in February, AfroLA published curated excerpts from The Thread exhibitions centered on themes of migration, memory, joy, sound, love, and cultural preservation:
Week 1: The Los Angeles Issue — Exploring migration and belonging through the lives documented in L.A. obituaries.
Week 2: The Love Issue — Guest curated by funeral home owner Candy Boyd, honoring artifacts of remembrance and community care.
Week 3: The Sound Issue — Featuring radio archivist Jocelyn Robinson and the preservation of Black voices from HBCU archives.
Week 4: The Joy Issue — Examining how uncovering family histories can reveal unexpected forms of intergenerational joy.
The Thread is guided by “Echo Weaver,” an AI archivist designed to analyze patterns across obituaries and transform them into curated narrative exhibits. Created by award-winning journalist and HEATDRAWN founder Ethan Ward, the project explores how technology can preserve cultural memory with care and intentionality.
“This partnership reflects a shared belief that everyday lives deserve dignity,” said Ward. “By working with AfroLA during Black History Month, we were able to center Black Los Angeles not as a footnote to history, but as an active archive of migration, resilience, creativity, and love.”
The collaboration also reflects AfroLA’s newsroom ethos of responsible AI integration — using technology to enhance reporting rather than replace human judgment.
The Thread is published by HEATDRAWN Media, an independent studio developing original work across publishing, audio, and emerging formats.
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