Women’s History Month 2025

Hey y’all! Professor Arionne here. It’s Women’s History Month, and as a Black woman in journalism, I know we have always been foundational to the field and, more importantly, how journalism, information, and the truth have been used to uphold democracy, to support movements, and to push people to act.

Like in every area of America’s fabric, Black women have always been right there.

Here are just five of them:

First up — on this particular list and always in my heart — is my idol Ida B. Wells.

If you’ve ever been in one of my reporting classes, it’s likely you’ve heard me talk about her and one of her quotes that drives what I do every day: “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.”

Wells’ story of influence is decades and decades-long, including being a co-founder of the NAACP, but one of her most recognizable impacts in journalism specifically was how she exposed the impacts of lynching throughout the U.S.

Wells was born enslaved in 1862 and was freed as an infant during the Civil War. Her journalism career started in Memphis, Tennessee, when she worked as an editor of a local newspaper.

Her career took a monumental turn when her friends were lynched by a white mob. One of those men was Thomas Moss. She called him and his wife her best friends and she was their daughter’s godmother. Moss was the owner of The People’s Grocery store in Memphis and a lot of people did not like how successful the store was.

After Moss and two of his employees were lynched, Wells set out to tell the true and accurate stories of so many other Black people who had been killed. She wrote strong editorials — editorials so strong they made her a target of mobs. Her newspaper office was burned down and white mobs in the area were literally trying to hunt her.

And although she and other Black folks were ready to fight — and she stayed strapped — she explained she left so that there wouldn’t more bloodshed. She continued writing all over the world and she wrote two pamphlets that catalogued 241 lynchings: A Red Record: Lynchings in the United States and Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.

THIS is investigative journalism and it truly changed how lynching was viewed because she told what was happening with data and firsthand storytelling.

Next up is Mary Ann Shadd Cary, someone whose work is not as well-known. But, Cary is the first Black woman newspaper editor in North American history.

She was born to two free Black abolitionists in Delaware in 1823.

Her and her family were part of the Underground Railroad, helping freedom seekers escape from enslavement. After the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, she moved to Canada. 

She got married, had children, and published Canada’s first antislavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman.

But she didn’t stay away from the U.S. for long. Her husband passed away and when the Civil War started, she moved back to help recruit soldiers for the Union army. She also was part of the first class of students at Howard University Law School and was the second Black woman ever to obtain a law degree.

The next fearless Black woman you need to know is Ethel L. Payne — also known as the First Lady of the Black Press.

Payne was born in 1911 on the South Side of Chicago. (Shout out to the South Side!) Her writing first turned heads when she started journaling about how Black Americans were treated during the Korean War. Payne wrote about how soldiers were segregated, faced racial slurs, and other issues. This led to a full-time role at the Chicago Defender.

As a reporter, Payne was known as being fearless and never afraid to ask tough questions. This didn’t end when she became the first African American woman to join the White House Press corps. Being part of this group of reporters gives you access to ask questions of officials you otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to.

And Payne questioned President Dwight Eisenhower about his choices in regards to Civil Rights all the time. For example, after Congress passed Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 she asked him about if his administration would support a ban on interstate travel segregation. 

Eisenhower was so irritated with Payne’s questioning he refused to call on her for the remainder of his presidency. And that’s not all she endured from the White House administration. Press Secretary James Hagerty tried to invalidate her as a journalist and also conducted an investigation on her.

Payne was also the first African American woman to appear on a national network as a radio and television commentator.

We see today the type of strength Black women journalists have to have in these spaces. And many of us learned it from Ethel Payne.

Another glass-breaking reporter on the Hill was Alice Dunnigan — the first Black woman to have a Capitol press pass and to be elected to the Women’s National Press Club.

Dunnigan was born in Kentucky in 1906, and she already had a weekly newspaper column by the time she was 14 years old.

Even though she was highly experienced, she faced a lot of sexism in her career — even from Black men — as she rose through the ranks. When she became the Washington bureau chief of the Associated Negro Press in 1946, it was only on a trial basis and she was significantly underpaid, earning a tenth of what some male editors were making.

She also became the first Black journalist of any gender to travel with the president. But her boss, Claude Barnett who was founder of the Associated Negro Press, asked her why she thought she could do what no man had done yet. So, she managed to borrow money and she paid her own travel.

With no office and no staff, Dunnigan was able to cover all the federal agencies, Congress, the White House. She wrote stories that were specifically important to Black readers when mainstream newspapers didn’t. She also was trusted by many sources and was able to publish exclusives that NO one else had.

Last but not least is the amazing civil rights journalist Daisy Bates.

Bates was born in 1914 in Arkansas and she has a traumatic childhood that likely helped push her into her activism. When she was three, a group of white men killed her mother and her father later left. She grew up in a foster home and after meeting her husband, they started their own newspaper, The Arkansas Weekly.

This newspaper was solely dedicated to covering the Civil Rights movement. And along with her husband, Bates was extremely involved in the Little Rock branch of the NAACP, serving in multiple roles, including president.

When Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered members of the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the entry of Black students during the desegregation of Central High, Bates was a mentor to those students: the Little Rock Nine. 

Racists tried to intimidate Bates, throwing rocks at their home, sending bullets in the mail, and trying other forms of attack and intimidation.

The newspaper was also specifically attacked financially due to Bates’ role in school desegregation. Distributors boycotted the paper and white business owners withheld their advertising dollars. This forced the couple to shut the newspaper down, but Bates’ work continued.

Her 1962 book The Long Shadow of Little Rock won an American Book Award and she spoke at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

You can read all of this information on my site at arionne.com/womenshistorymonth25 along with some great recommended readings by and about these legendary women.