We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Devin Moore. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Devin below.

Hi Devin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

After going through racist bullying in middle school, I didn’t want another kid to go through what I went through.

I couldn’t sleep. I had nightmares. I was paranoid. I suffered from headaches. My appetite decreased. I couldn’t focus in class. I have high anxiety. The racist bullying changed the way I look at life.

I decided to take my horrible racist experiences and turn it into something positive.

At the age of 14, I founded #RaceToSpeakUp, an antibullying organization that educates and empowers the youth about bullying prevention and how to be upstanders.

I don’t want to see another student grades declining, being scared to go to school, using drugs, or even committing suicide because of bullying.

After going through this bullying and seeing others go through bullying throughout the world, I decided that I wanted to be a part of the positive change that puts an end to this problem.

I knew that if a young person speaks to other young people about an important issue like this, they are more inclined to listen and relate. I started speaking at schools, podcasts, churches, etc. I started posting positive affirmations online because I believe that we need to uplift each other, especially when going online.

Now, I’ve spoken at National Conferences, designed an anti-cyberbullying curriculum called #BehindThe Screen and created a monthly webinar based on the curriculum, Host the Race To Speak Up Podcast, and continue to speak at schools about bullying prevention.

My most recent accomplishment through this work is writing my first Children’s Anti-bullying Book called Devin Speaks Up! It shares my personal bullying story, educates about speaking up to someone you trust, being upstanders, and embracing our beautiful differences. The front cover of Devin Speaks Up! shows the unity heart full of youth who are from all different backgrounds – black, white, muslim, tall, short, bigger in size, etc.

I continue to work to further the anti-bullying education through giving Race To Speak Up Against Bullying Workshops and giving Devin Speaks Up! Book readings.

Educating others about anti-bullying is my life’s work and I will always be inspired to help others because kindness matters.

We are all a part of one race – The Human Race!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Devin Moore. I’m currently 19 years old. I’m a Sophomore at the University of Maryland where I major in Psychology and Minor in Nonprofit Leadership.

I am the Founder of the Race To Speak Up Anti-Bullying Organization and Author of Devin Speaks Up! Children’s Anti-Bullying Book.

I started my anti-bullying work after going through racist bullying in middle school and wanted to be a part of the positive change that puts an end to bullying.

I offer Race To Speak Up Against Bullying Workshops, which allows for participants to gain anti-bullying knowledge, create effective solutions to this bullying epidemic, and educates them to bring a Call To Action that can be implemented in classrooms. The interactive workshop is geared towards youth and further anti-bullying education and creates a more positive, kind and respectful world.

I sell Devin Speaks Up! Books through my website www.racetospeakup.com/shop and offer book readings!

I’m teaching others in an effort to lessen this bullying epidemic.

I’m most proud of when a kid comes up to me and says “Devin, because you used your voice, I feel confident enough to speak up too. I’ll Race To Speak Up.”

I want all to know that you can bring Devin Speaks Up! and my workshops to your schools, museums, bookstores, and organizations because we need to continue to help as many as we can and support each other.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

The way that I first started building my audience was by following other nonprofit organizations and entrepreneurs who had a similar niche to mine. I wanted to focus on those who are working towards making a positive world too! As time went on, I was speaking at more schools, churches, podcasts, webinars, etc. and was able to make more connections and we followed each other on social media. I also made sure to stay in touch with all of them – it helps. I continued to grow my audience through my Race To Speak Up Podcast. For every guest, I made sure to follow them and have them follow me back. That way others would see my work and I would be able to see their work, as well as anyone connected with them.

The best advice I would give would be to make sure that you keep up with any trends that are going on with each social media app that you use.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

For every school that said there isn’t a bullying problem, I never let that stop me from working towards speaking there. I’ve built relationships over time and that allowed for people to truly understand my anti-bullying message and how important it is for that message to be taught to their students.

Once the pandemic hit and everyone had to use the internet a lot more, I didn’t let the lack of in person speaking engagements stop me. Though being in person feels more like a one on one conversation and it is usually easier to listen to me when conducting my workshops, I knew I had to figure out the best ways to transfer this to being online.

During this process, I decided to create the #BehindTheScreen Anti-Cyberbullying Curriculum and structure it in a way that allows for students to bring it back to their community and make it easy to use. I created the Behind The Screen – The Harms of Cyberbullying Webinar and based it off of the curriculum. Not only did I work with Psychiatrist Dr. Sundeep Randhawa, who focused on child and adolescent bullying, I also had great guests who talked about a variety of different topics (bullying apps, suicide prevention, kindness, confidence)

I continued to focus on podcasting and created and Host the Race To Speak Up Podcast where I interview activists, entrepreneurs, and business leaders about how they are making a more empathetic and kind world.

Beyond that I continued to make more connections online and it eventually led me to gaining more speaking engagement opportunities!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.racetospeakup.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/racetospeakup/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/race.to.speak.up.1/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinmoore-racetospeakup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/racetospeakup?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMs7b_gwc6ghUkn-gbHLGTQ
• Other: https://linktr.ee/RaceToSpeakUp https://linktr.ee/authordevinmoore

Image Credits
Linda Rosier – Newsday