"Washington Post" journalist Wesley Lowery gave a speech at the University of South Florida’s Oval Theatre on Thursday regarding police brutality, the Black Lives Matter movement and the media’s coverage of social injustice.

Lowery opened his speech with background on his career choices. He originally started out writing about politics. It was his goal to write about the 2016 election race. Lowery shifted over while looking into social justice issues during the riots in Ferguson, MO. He said the stories the citizens told were so outlandish. One man told him they called an ambulance for an injured person and instead police came and arrested the hurt person.

“Even I didn’t believe the stories the people of Ferguson were telling me enough to look into them,” Lowery said.

Even though Lowery thought he would only be in Ferguson for three days, he ended up staying three months. He interviewed protesters and watched as the citizens fought against injustice. Lowery said that the people of Ferguson were so committed he could tell that what was occuring was different.

The audience at Lowery’s speech was a mix of young and old. They were astonished when Lowery told them that there was not a record of how many people had been killed by police officers. The Washington Post worked to find their own number of deaths caused by police officers. They found that every day it is estimated that two people die from encounters with police brutality. The audience was surprised by this.

Lowey's point was that the media needs to listen more to the people. "I used to think journalists like me gave a voice to the voiceless, but now I know some people aren’t voiceless, they’re just unheard,” concluded Lowery. “It all comes down to what we think highly enough of to listen and address.”