In 1927, The US Supreme Court declared sterilization of handicap persons constitutional. This ruling was used as justification to sterilize Black women who were deemed “mentally diseased” or “feeble minded” by accepted scientific phenotype classifications. Hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy Black women were sterilized throughout the United States with California and North Carolina topping the list for almost a century. Without informed consent in many cases, Black women were routinely sterilized for no valid medical cause. Teaching hospitals in the South performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women so often, the procedure came to be known as “Mississippi Appendectomies”.
This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.
For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.
Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.
We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.
If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.
