Too few news leaders and journalists understand that news media have been, and continue to be, critical actors in political conflict.

Too few understand that news institutions actively helped build anti-democratic, white supremacist political economies and social orders in the South for nearly 100 years, often using the tools of racial terror to quash Black political and economic aspiration—and how this work shaped news and society in other parts of the United States. Black journalists of the past fought back. And the struggle continues today.

We hope journalists across the country will read and engage with the history and ideas in Journalism and Jim Crow. While the book focuses on anti-Black white supremacy in the South for generations after Reconstruction, it provides a template for studying the role of news institutions in political conflict in other regions and periods and involving other racial and ethnic groups.

It’s time to learn these histories and to have these conversations.

We are happy to join your newsroom in discussion. Take the first step by contacting us below.