A phone call brought home the critical role Black journalists play

It was a late-night voicemail that made me aware of the power and importance of Black journalists in South Carolina.

I had recently begun serving as the local columnist for The Sun News, replacing a beloved white columnist, Bob Bestler. I was writing about race and politics in a way our mostly-white and largely conservative audience had not been used to. I wrote about painful family issues – such as a 1982 murder my oldest brother committed – to illustrate broader-universal subjects like few others were. I was challenging local and state politicians, Democrats and Republicans, including run-ins with Mark Sanford, a high-profile congressman who became governor (then congressman again). I had gotten a lot of feedback from readers, elected officials and activists, pastors and parents. But it was the late-night voicemail that broke through to me like little else.

It was the voice of an elderly Black woman. She was speaking in hushed tones as though fearing being overheard even though she was talking to a machine well after business hours. I listened to it the next morning. I can’t remember the exact words but remember the message, that she was praying for me, that she was proud of but afraid for me. She did want me to get hurt by ugly people who would attack me for daring speak truth to power while Black the way she had seen Black people be treated. It was the sincerest message I had ever received. She was happy that a young Black man had broken through in a Deep South state she knew had long been unkind to those, like her, who wear dark skin.

It was a reminder, more like a forced realization, that the position I held was bigger than me, more important than any single line of perfectly-executed prose. My presence alone gave her hope, allowed her to feel connected in a way she likely hadn’t in a long time, if ever. I didn’t ask for the role but in that moment understood the responsibility. It meant I was representing her even if I didn’t want to or fully knew what that entailed. It meant excellence had to be the goal, that how I went about my job, carried myself, would resonate in ways I’d never be able to fully grasp.

I received many other calls and messages like that one, including people with salient stories to tell but who had been afraid to tell them. They distrusted a media which too frequently had demeaned or ignored people who looked like us, spread stereotypes about who we allegedly were, often unintentionally, sometimes not. This isn’t to say that non-Black journalists in South Carolina aren’t able to connect with or be trusted by callers like her. They can. I’ve seen them do it. It’s that because of the long history of racism in this state, it’s exceedingly difficult to break through that barrier. That’s why I’ve seen Black families like the Taylors out of McClellanville lean on Black media and Black journalists during their toughest moments.

When Timothy Shaun Taylor and Timothy Dashaun Taylor were accused of kidnapping, raping and murdering 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel of New York – and allegedly feeding her body to alligators – in a high-profile case that took 13 years to unwind, they were relentlessly bombarded by racist death threats inspired by hyperbolic and misleading media coverage. They were never charged. It was eventually revealed a white convicted sexual predator was the real perpetrator.

But the Taylors felt convicted by media and found only a few media members and journalists who truly listened, who understood what it meant to be Black in South Carolina and to be accused of doing such dastardly things to a white girl. That connection matters. I wish race was no longer an issue that needed to grappled with. But because of this state’s history, and everyday 21st century realities, it remains a struggle. Black journalists play an indispensable role in that grappling.