Attacking Black Journalists Is an American Tradition
When Ida B. Wells published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases in 1892, an unflinching investigation into the utilization of lynching to subjugate free Black men, she also exposed America’s attitude toward Black journalists. Earlier that year, three Black men who co-owned a grocery store in Memphis, Tennessee, that was competing with a white-owned shop across the street were arrested and later lynched by a group of men wearing black masks. In her grief, Wells was inspired to investigate lynchings, reportedly digging into more than 700 incidents and interviewing dozens of people.
Her anti-lynching work did not go unnoticed by racist residents, and while she was out of town, a mob destroyed the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, a Black-owned newspaper that she was the co-owner and editor of. Threats on her life were made, which continued throughout her career, but Wells was undeterred. She published Southern Horrors, The Red Record, and many other investigative, sociological, and editorial deep dives into the contours of racial injustice.
Wells, along with other Black journalists of her age, pioneered a trail that contemporary figures have continued to blaze. But just like Wells and her counterparts, Black journalists today are still marginalized, both in their profession and by society.
ON THURSDAY NIGHT, FORMER CNN ANCHOR turned independent journalist Don Lemon was arrested by federal authorities in Los Angeles. In the early hours of Friday morning, Georgia Fort, another independent journalist, was also taken into custody. Fort livestreamed the moment federal agents arrived at her home, saying that they told her a grand jury handed down a warrant for her arrest. This was confirmed in an unsealed indictment.
Lemon, Fort, and seven others were arrested for their connection to a protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. On January 18, a group of demonstrators, led by Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and minister, and Chauntyll Allen, a St. Paul school board member, interrupted a service in progress, after learning that David Easterwood, a pastor at the church, leads the ICE field office in St. Paul. Filmed by Lemon and Fort, the demonstrators chanted, “ICE out,” “David Easterwood, out now,” and “Justice for Renee Good.” In Lemon’s seven-hour livestream, he is heard identifying himself: “I’m just here photographing … I’m a journalist.”
After failures to get magistrate and appeals court judges to issue arrest warrants for Lemon and Fort, federal prosecutors succeeded with a grand jury. The two journalists were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, along with a count of conspiracy against rights. The FACE Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and prohibits interference with people trying to access reproductive health clinics. Last January, the Department of Justice announced in a memo that the FACE Act had been used to target anti-abortion protesters, and vowed that future enforcement of the law would only be allowed in “extraordinary circumstances.”
“I think all of this is a test of how much the American public will take before they respond.”
Kelley Robinson, Human Rights Campaign
Lemon and Fort’s arrests are another instance of the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on the press, which have mainly been directed toward organizations and individuals labeled by the president as “fake news.” In 2025, the United States was ranked 57th (out of 180 countries) in the world in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, two points down from the year prior.
“Nothing is more fundamental to open government and accountability than robust freedom of speech and freedom of the press,” says David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition. “Journalism is not a crime, and the rhetoric of this administration is immensely troubling.”
Loy points out that journalists may be called as witnesses during leak investigations. Sometimes, the federal government will issue subpoenas or execute search warrants on journalists to obtain confidential information. But the arrests of Lemon and Fort cross a line. “When the reporter themselves is actually charged with a crime for simply reporting the news, that’s a direct attack on the First Amendment.”
This specific targeting of journalists is also made more complicated, and concerning, due to the fact that both Lemon and Fort are Black. The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) said in a statement that “the selective targeting of journalists—especially, Black and LGBTQIA journalists—raises urgent concerns about unequal enforcement and retaliatory policing of the press.”
Since the 19th century, Black journalists and news organizations have faced hurdles to exercising their First Amendment rights. Known as the “Black press,” African American journalism was established to explore, publish, and amplify stories untold or wrongly reported by white-owned publications. In a country built upon the violent oppression of Black people, Black journalists empowered their communities and used their reporting to inspire social change.
It wasn’t uncommon for Black press buildings to be set ablaze, killing those inside. A common tactic employed by racist mobs, the destruction of Black-owned property was used as a tool to hinder the success of such businesses.
Threats against Black journalists who dared to report on events related to racial injustice have long been commonplace. Wells wasn’t the first, and certainly was not the last, to experience racist harassment. Robert Abbott, the editor of the Chicago Defender (one of the most prominent African American newspapers) was confronted several times by police officers who detested the newspaper’s coverage of racial violence.
Many scholars consider the 1940s the end of the Black press’s most influential period. It coincided with the end of World War II, which kicked off the Second Red Scare. The late 1940s through the 1950s was marked by fears of communist infiltration into every American institution, and many accusations were levied against leading figures in the fight for racial equality.
During the civil rights movement, McCarthyism had a tight grip on American society. Any protest, dissent, or progressive political expression was considered anti-American, and therefore communist. Government agencies such as the FBI regularly executed covert operations to discredit those rallying for racial justice, leading many Black journalists and newspapers to back down from publishing stories about racism. Yet the impact of the Black press, and the work of Black journalists, transformed America.
And that was, and continues to be, dangerous.
OVER THE PAST YEAR, THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION has made a point of publicly discrediting reporters and news organizations that have dared to ask hard-hitting questions, or have done reporting that paints the administration’s actions in a negative light.
Beyond these verbal altercations, government agencies have also crossed the line into physically targeting journalists and their property. On January 14, the FBI executed a search warrant at the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing electronics and journalistic equipment.
After refusing to change house style to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” the Associated Press was banned from the White House press room. The Trump administration has filed numerous multibillion-dollar lawsuits against major news organizations. At the end of 2025, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was forced to dissolve due to the passage of a rescissions package that killed its federal funding. A new feature was even added to the White House website: a “Hall of Shame” that highlights “fake news.”
Black journalists in particular have borne a significant share of this abuse. Trump’s appearance at the NABJ 2024 convention was incredibly contentious, and included multiple instances in which he insulted moderator Rachel Scott. During his first term, he used words such as “loser,” “stupid,” and “nasty” to describe Black women journalists. Much more recently, Trump called Lemon a “loser, lightweight” for his reporting on the protest at Cities Church.
Perhaps this rhetoric contributed to the DOJ’s decision to arrest Lemon and Fort. Or maybe it’s reflective of a broader siege on the free press and the First Amendment. “I think all of this is a test, a test of how much the American public will take before they respond,” says Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
“In arresting Don Lemon and Georgia Fort … I think what they tried to do is make an example of Black journalists specifically, because perhaps America would accept that,” says Robinson.
Using a criminal justice system that is riddled with racial disparities and born out of the subjugation of Black people to persecute Black journalists is particularly alarming. The Trump administration is no stranger to using the courts as a tool to suppress the press, but up until this point, it hadn’t brought charges against individual journalists.
“In litigation, especially in criminal cases, the process is the punishment … so it’s immensely troubling. It’s completely unacceptable to be intimidating or attempting to intimidate a free press from doing its job,” says Loy.
Regardless of motive, the prosecution of Lemon and Fort is representative of the vulnerable position that Black journalists have long occupied. Even if the charges against them are thrown out, a dangerous precedent has been set.
Robinson believes that the American public can, and will, continue to see through the rhetoric that the Trump administration is driving forward with these arrests. “We understand what is happening right now. It is not only an attack on Black people, it’s an attack on all of us,” she says.
As Trump continues striving to limit press freedom, more than just Black journalists will be caught in the crosshairs. People of all backgrounds will experience the effects of losing independent, comprehensive reporting.
As Ida B. Wells once said: “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.”
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