Dori Maynard, a journalist and longtime advocate for media diversity and accurate news coverage of people of color, has died of complications from lung cancer at the age of 56. Maynard was president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, co-founded by and named for her father, who became the first African American to own a major daily newspaper when he bought the Oakland Tribune in 1983. In a recent interview posted by the Institute for Black Male Achievement, Maynard answered the question: “Why do you do what you do?”

Dori Maynard: “So, for years, when people would ask me this question, I would tell them, 'Because I don't want my younger brothers to get shot.’ And I think people thought I was being a little overly dramatic. And then Trayvon Martin got shot, and then Jordan Davis got shot, and I think people began to understand what I was saying, which is that that’s happening against the backdrop of a steady barrage of inaccurate and distorted coverage of black men, that pigeonholes them in coverage, makes them look like predators, or riddled with pathology, makes them the face of the problem. And until we change that, no matter what we do to prepare black men to be successful in this society, we’re sending them out into a hostile environment.”

Dori Maynard died at home in West Oakland, California, on Tuesday.