President Donald Trump’s latest attack on the media — banning CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House — marks a serious escalation in his ongoing attempt to silence a free and independent press. But for Black journalists, this feels like familiar territory.
Akayla Gardner, a White House Correspondent for MS NOW and a member of the Washington Association of Black Journalists, quickly became the face of the ban after she explained on air that she was prevented from entering the White House. Secret Service agents turned her away at the gate and kept her press credentials.
Gardner didn’t intend on becoming the news that day; she was simply doing her job.
“What happened to me and my colleagues at Politico and CNN could have happened to any member of the White House press corps,” she wrote in an opinion column for MS NOW.
Though Trump’s press ban isn’t directly targeting Black journalists, there’s no better group that understands what it means to be barred and what it takes to fight to inform our communities regardless of the barriers placed in our way.
Black journalists have a long history of challenging attacks on democracy and press freedom in a way other journalists may not. Legendary Black journalists like Harry McAlpin, the first Black reporter to attend a White House press briefing, and Alice Dunnigan, the first Black woman to receive White House credentials, were also simply trying to do their jobs as well.
When McAlpin and Dunnigan were told they couldn’t receive congressional press credentials, they weren’t explicitly told that no Black reporters were allowed to cover Congress. At the time, press credentials were only given to daily newspapers, and most Black newspapers were published weekly.
Despite these barriers, McAlpin and Dunnigan remained committed to asking tough questions, and providing their readers with accurate information. They persevered, and their stories hold lessons that Black journalists today should carry with us today.
“[When] the story is about us, the attention turns away from the issues that affect everyday Americans, and right now, there are so many,” Gardner said in her opinion column. “We will keep covering them, whether from inside the White House gates or outside them.”
Black journalists have always been prepared to report the truth, whether we are allowed in the room or not. And we always will.
Phil Lewis is president of the Washington Association of Black Journalists and deputy front page editor at HuffPost.
