(RICHMOND – February 23, 2026) – Black-owned newspapers are disappearing before our eyes.

Historic institutions that once carried our stories, defended our dignity, and documented our victories are folding across the country. Newsrooms that anchored neighborhoods for generations are going quiet. Seniors who relied on the printed word are now being forced into a digital world that did not wait for them.

This is not just a Black problem. It is not even just an American problem. It is global.

Technology disrupted everything.

We once used pagers. Then cell phones replaced them. House phones became optional. Now news lives in the palm of your hand. A single influencer with a smartphone can reach more people in seconds than a newsroom once could in a week.

The game changed.

Years ago, The Baltimore Sun recruited me to blog for them. Soon after, their reporters were required to shoot video on their phones. The thing is — I had already been doing that. Innovation wasn’t new to us. We were early.

But disruption leaves casualties.

When a Black newspaper closes, something more than a business disappears. Institutional memory vanishes. Accountability weakens. Community narrative shifts into someone else’s hands.

That void is dangerous.

That is why we built BlackUSA.News.

Not as nostalgia.
Not as resistance to change.
But as adaptation with intention.

I have worked in the Black Press since 1994. I have seen what happens when we control our story — and what happens when we don’t.

BlackUSA.News is our answer to this moment.

We are not watching the Black Press die.
We are rebuilding it — digitally, nationally, unapologetically.

And we welcome all who are ready to build with us.

(OKLAHOMA – August 17, 2025) – When I first started researching my family’s genealogy, I thought I was just going to fill in a few blanks.
Instead, I uncovered a lie so deep, so systematic, it reshaped everything I thought I knew about who we are as a people.

I want to show you something personal.

Below, you’ll see two official U.S. government records—both documenting one of my direct ancestors. Thomas Jefferson Adams Harjo.

Creek Nation certificate

📜 The first is from the Dawes Roll, the federal list created in the early 1900s to register members of the Five Civilized Tribes.

As you’ll see, my ancestor is listed as a Full-Blood Indian—a clear acknowledgment of their tribal heritage and cultural identity.

1900 US Census

But then, take a look at the second image:

📄 That’s the federal census record from just a few years later.
Same ancestor.
Same location.
But this time, the government marked them as Negro.

No tribe. No Indian classification.
Just folded into the general Black population—without consent, without explanation.

That wasn’t a mistake.
That was paper genocide.

This is what happened to millions of Indigenous Black Americans across the South.
Their identities were stripped away on paper—one document at a time—by a system designed to erase, absorb, and exploit.

This wasn’t just about racism. It was about land, power, and control.

By reclassifying tribal people as Negro or Colored, the government could:

• Deny them land rights

• Remove them from tribal rolls

• Steal their inheritance

• And make sure future generations never knew who they really were

This is why so many of our elders say, “My grandma said we had Indian in us.”
They weren’t lying.
They just didn’t have the tools to prove it.

Now we do.

And I’m not showing you this to just share my story—I’m showing you because this might be your story, too.

If you’re ready to go deeper, tomorrow I’m going to pull back the curtain on how far this went—how the reclassification of Black Indians was not an exception, but the rule across the Southeast.

You’re not crazy.
You’re not reaching.
You’re remembering.

—Mike
Founder, Native Black Ancestry

From a single Maryland facility to three locations and now two more opening in 2025, Dominique Dawes is scaling her gymnastics academy with a goal of 50 nationwide.

Her blend of elite training and a positive, family-focused culture is making waves in the $30 billion youth sports industry.
READ MORE