My name is Mili Mansaray, and I serve as Senior Editor + Director of Radical Media Initiatives at The Kansas City Defender. I help lead our newsroom’s editorial coverage and work across our media and community programs to shape how our journalism shows up in the world.
Ten years ago, when it was time for me to choose what I wanted to study in undergrad, I set my sights on journalism. Coming of age as a Black woman in 2016 meant being awakened in a very particular way. Donald Trump was in the running to become president. We were still grappling with the killings of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, and so many others. In my hometown, Columbia, SC, Black women were climbing flagpoles outside the state house to take down Confederate flags themselves.
It felt like the world was shifting, and I wanted to be a part of it. As a creative writer, I knew there was a field that sat at the intersection of storytelling and change.
I became a journalist because I wanted to see real change in my community. But after spending the last few years in traditional newsrooms, the limitations of that space became increasingly and abundantly clear.
Journalism in its traditional form is oftentimes archaic, rigid, and inflexible, placing a heavy emphasis on blanket neutrality even in moments when marginalized communities are actively being harmed and disenfranchised.
Too often, the perspective that gets labeled “objective” reflects the worldview of those who already hold power. Other perspectives — especially those coming from Black communities — get treated as subjective, biased, or outside the norm. That kind of framing can reinforce the very systems and narratives journalists should be interrogating as watchdogs of the powerful.
You see it in the headlines. Newsrooms hesitating to call what is happening in Palestine a genocide despite staggering death tolls. Coverage of the Trump era that softens or avoids naming authoritarian behavior directly, further normalizing it.
It’s no surprise that many people have begun to disengage from the news altogether. According to Oxford University’s Reuters Institute, nearly four in ten people worldwide say they sometimes or often actively avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017.
But the Black press has always served a different purpose. From Ida B. Wells documenting the truth about lynching to generations of Black journalists using the press to challenge injustice, the work has never been just about reflecting the status quo. It has been about using information to fight for the betterment of our communities.
I didn’t realize that legacy still lived on, until I found The Defender.
Here lives journalism that doesn’t just inform the people, but empowers them. Journalism rooted in collective liberation and invested in the future of the communities it serves.
Beyond the media, the Defender is working to build power among Kansas City’s Black community through multiple avenues. Alongside our reporting, we run mutual aid programs like the Hamer Free Food Program, a Free Clothing Program, host political education through B-REAL Academy, and create spaces for art, culture, and togetherness.
The Defender is not an institution extracting from a community in order to survive. We are writers, creatives, organizers, neighbors, and friends who are actively part of the communities we cover. We sit within them, not above them. And our survival only matters if the work we do continues to serve our people.
As we move into 2026, we want to make sure we’re serving you in the ways that matter most.
That’s why we created a short Reader Survey. It takes less than five minutes, and your feedback will help shape our reporting, programming, and the direction we take next.
It is more imperative now than ever that we build power among the people. If I thought the world was shifting ten years ago, what we’re experiencing now — as Black people, as working-class people, as neighbors — feels less like a shift and more like a rupture.
When I decided to pursue journalism, I was searching for a way to respond to a world that was unjust, broken, and deeply corrupt. And now at The Defender, I’m doing just that. But I am not doing it alone.
Our journalism is rooted in community. And we cannot build power within our communities without guidance from the people we serve.
If you have five minutes, we’d really appreciate hearing from you.
The post Journalism for Us, by Us: The Defender’s Call to Kansas City’s Black Community appeared first on The Kansas City Defender.
