Credit: Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center. 1994 / Wikimedia Commons
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
America watched it happen in real time.
Journalists were arrested for doing their jobs. Not in some distant dictatorship. Not under cover of night in a failed state. In the United States of America.
Don Lemon. Georgia Fort. Trahem Jeen Crews. Jamael Lydell Lundy.
Their crime was witnessing power and reporting it.
While the arrests were immediate and the outrage was instant, the courage was nowhere to be found.
Yes, statements poured in. Carefully worded. Properly formatted. Issued by politicians, civil rights organizations, advocacy groups, and celebrities. Condemnations. Expressions of concern. Warnings about precedent. All of it swift. All of it predictable. All of it ultimately safe.
And yet, here we are.
The arrests were not a misunderstanding. They were not overzealous enforcement. They were not a procedural error to be corrected quietly. They were a deliberate, calculated escalation. A message. A threat. A line drawn by an administration that has made clear it no longer recognizes limits.
This was a 9/11-style assault on the First Amendment. Not because of the body count, but because of the consequence. After 9/11, Americans woke up in a country where rights could be suspended in the name of power. After these arrests, journalists woke up in a country where truth itself is treated as a threat.
The facts are damning. Federal agents arrested journalists after a federal magistrate judge declined to issue warrants. Charges were pursued over the reported objections of career prosecutors. Journalists were detained overnight. All of it aimed squarely at reporting on federal agent activity and public protest.
The American Civil Liberties Union did not mince words. Esha Bhandari called it extremely concerning. Deepinder Mayell warned that arresting journalists should alarm everyone. Amnesty International labeled it an authoritarian practice. Public Citizen called it an egregious violation of the First Amendment.
They are all correct. And still insufficient.
Because this is not only about the press. It is about who the press is.
This is an assault on Black journalists.
Georgia Fort is an Emmy-winning Minnesota-based journalist whose reporting has centered on communities too often ignored. Don Lemon is a global figure who dared to criticize power and refused to flinch. Jamael Lundy and Trahem Jeen Crews were documenting protests and state force the way journalists have always done in moments of upheaval.
There is no coincidence here. Black journalists have always occupied the most dangerous intersection in American history. Truth and Blackness have always been treated as insurgencies.
The Black Press of America was born before the end of slavery. Two hundred years ago, Black journalists understood what many still refuse to admit. That power does not yield to politeness. That silence is collaboration. That the truth must be printed even when it invites retaliation.
In 2027, the Black Press will mark its 200th anniversary. It has survived slave catchers, lynch mobs, Jim Crow, COINTELPRO, redlining, FBI surveillance, advertising boycotts, and government intimidation. It has survived because Black journalists understood that the price of silence is always higher than the cost of courage.
And yet today, as federal agents arrest journalists, as citizens are killed by masked officers in broad daylight, as norms collapse, and as civil rights are stripped away piece by piece, the question remains unanswered.
Where is the real pushback?
Where is the Republican willing to risk a career?
Where is the Democrat willing to shut down business as usual?
Where is the senator willing to grind the chamber to a halt?
Where is the Supreme Court justice willing to speak before history forces their silence to speak for them?
Statements are not resistance. Press releases do not stop authoritarianism. Carefully calibrated outrage does not reverse the collapse of democracy.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the American people are demanding accountability. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the arrest of Don Lemon a dark message to journalists everywhere. Mayor Karen Bass called it an egregious assault on constitutionally protected rights. Rev. Al Sharpton called it a sledgehammer to the knees of the First Amendment. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren warned of tin-pot dictatorship and spine-chilling assaults on press freedom.
They are right. And still the arrests happened.
ICE continues to occupy communities. Federal power continues to be weaponized. The Department of Justice continues to be bent toward vengeance rather than law. The Federal Reserve is looted in plain sight. Racism is no longer dog whistled. It is sanctioned. The ambition is not governance. It is domination.
So when the history books are written, the ones not erased or rewritten by this administration, who will be remembered as having the guts to stand up?
It may not be the ones with titles. It may not be the ones with gavels. It may not be the ones with lifetime appointments.
It may be the journalists.
It may be Georgia Fort, standing in a church, documenting power intruding on sacred space.
It may be Don Lemon, livestreaming protest while knowing exactly how much the administration despises him.
It may be Black journalists who once again find themselves on the front lines, absorbing the blows meant for democracy itself.
No matter what ails America, history shows the same pattern. Black America bleeds first. Black America resists longest. Black America saves what others abandon.
The question is not whether this moment will be remembered.
The question is who will be remembered with honor.
Silence will answer for everyone else.