Meet Dana Diab, Author of “Bridging the Gap: Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement” and winner of the Penn State Center for Democratic Deliberation’s National Undergraduate Essay Contest

Dana Diab graduated in May 2022 with her bachelor’s in International Affairs and a minor in Linguistics from Emory University. Dana is currently a paralegal at an in-house council. She is hoping to go to law school in the next two years. 

She advises curious writers looking to be published in YSW to enter writing competitions. She entered a competition called The Rhetorics of The Civil Rights Movement. As a result of the partnership between YSW and the Center for Democratic Deliberation, Dana was given the opportunity to publish her work after winning the national undergraduate essay contest. She was inspired to use her resources, get guidance when submitting to YSW, and participate in future competitions. 

For Dana, the most exciting part of researching her topic was digging deeper into the history of Black women in politics, which aligned with a course she took on the same subject. She loved learning what strategies Black women used in the civil rights movement. This topic was significant to Dana because she realized there was a lack of awareness of what strategies Black women used in politics. Dana made the information more accessible to college students by writing her article. Since she was already on the legal track, YSW did not directly impact her future career. However, through her experience with YSW, Dana took away the enjoyment of writing and editing and the relationships built with the people she worked with at YSW.

This post was originally drafted by students in Dr. Cope’s Fall 2022 WRT320: Digital Writing course and edited and updated by Alex Merritt.