The room went quiet as the screen filled with a compilation of President Donald Trump’s public attacks against Black women. Clip after clip played inside Oak Bluffs’ historic Union Chapel, and audible cries of frustration or disgust came from the audience.
That energy shifted when veteran journalist Rehema Ellis welcomed to the stage four influential Black women working across journalism, politics, and media — Joy-Ann Reid, April Ryan, Errin Haines, and Christina Greer — and the room erupted in cheers and applause.
The contrast was striking from moments earlier. The audience had watched as Black women were publicly demeaned for questioning and challenging power in the video montage. Then, the crowd loudly celebrated Black women who had built careers doing exactly that.
It was a fitting beginning to “Truth Under Fire: Defending Black Women Journalists and Freedom of the Press,” part of the Charles Ogletree Public Forum Series, a signature speaker event focused on race and justice hosted annually by the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs.
The setting mattered, too. Oak Bluffs is and has been a gathering place for Black families, thinkers, artists, and leaders.
On Wednesday, August 19, inside Union Chapel, a space with deep cultural roots in the Black Vineyard community, the conversation quickly became larger than journalism: What does it cost to tell the truth, and who protects those willing to tell it?
For Ryan, a veteran White House correspondent, that cost is deeply personal. She described threats, FBI involvement, security concerns, and the toll on her life from years of being publicly targeted.
“I’ve been through too much not to tell the story,” Ryan said. She explained that she now has to be strategic about where, when, and how she shows up, because she knows she can be a target to far-right agitators and politicians. But strategy does not mean silence. “I still cover,” she insisted. “I walk in peace, knowing that I can ask those questions because of the First Amendment.”
Reid, a veteran political journalist, widened the conversation to the power behind those attacks.
“There’s nothing like the president of the United States, the chief executive of this country, personally attacking you. There’s just nothing that compares to that,” Reid said. “It’s just different when the full power of the presidency is trained on you. When he speaks, they respond, meaning you get the threats, you get the attacks.”
But Reid also challenged those witnessing it. “Where’s the solidarity among the journalists in the room?” she asked.
For Haines, editor-at-large and founding member of “The 19th” and president of the National Association of Black Journalists, that silence can have consequences.
“When we are trying to hold power to account, and we get disrespect simply for doing our job, it is the permission structure for other people to do the same,” Haines said. “You don’t have to be a Black journalist to care about what is happening to Black journalists. This is a workplace issue.”
Whether that disrespect is deliberate, Haines argued, does not change its consequences.
“Intent is not the point; it’s the impact,” she said. “It is important for all of us to call it out. We cannot allow the media to normalize the disrespect and abuse that happens to Black women. We used to be able to tell an honest story. Facts are now up for debate. History is now up for debate.”
Greer, a political scientist and Fordham University professor, placed the moment within a much longer history, invoking pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells and her refusal to accept narratives used to excuse or minimize lynching. Black women, Greer argued, have historically been among the country’s most unfiltered storytellers, and that willingness to confront uncomfortable truths often made them targets.
“Who is the Ida in the newsrooms today?” Greer asked.
The conversation didn’t end with the dangers journalists face today. It turned toward what’s coming next.
For Haines, there was reason for optimism. “Young people are running to this work. They want to do this work, and they want to do it with us,” she said. “They want to tell the truth about this country. They just need the tools to know how to do it.”
And those young journalists are not necessarily waiting for traditional institutions to give them permission. Haines noted that if legacy newsrooms can’t provide the space, some are prepared to create their own.
Haines offered an important reminder about what young Black journalists already bring to the profession: “You are already enough. Know that you have value. You have so much to contribute right now,” she said.
The future of journalism may live in traditional newsrooms, independent media, podcasts, Substack, YouTube, and platforms still being built. But Haines said sustaining that future will require something beyond individual courage. “Journalism is a group project,” she said. “Engage with one another. I hope we can recommit to each other.”
The speakers said that defending Black women journalists can’t mean simply asking Black women to withstand more. It requires colleagues willing to speak when they are targeted, institutions willing to protect them, communities willing to support their work, and a next generation given the tools and freedom to continue it.
