Greetings Family,
I hope you’re doing well.
There has never been a time when truth-tellers, courageous risk-takers, and doers were not needed. But there are moments in history when that need rings louder, and silence becomes especially dangerous. If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is one of those moments.
The current administration keeps generating overlapping harms, requiring us to triage our response. Among them is the renewed assault on free speech. We are watching journalists be harassed, detained, and criminally charged for reporting on protests and state violence. Last week, I highlighted that we are not living in unprecedented times. The United States is simply returning to its blood-stained roots.
Courageous Black journalists have long been targeted for exposing racial terror, economic exploitation, and state-sanctioned violence. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Black reporters faced exile, threats, burned presses, and death for refusing to lie about what was happening to Black communities. Their truth disrupted comfort and threatened hierarchies and systems built on violence and exploitation.
One of the clearest examples of that courage was Ida B. Wells.
Ida B. Wells investigated lynching with precision and relentless discipline. She published names, statistics, and case studies proving that lynching was not about crime control but about racial terror designed to halt Black progress. Her press was destroyed in Memphis. She received death threats. She was forced to relocate. She continued writing, organizing, and speaking nationally and internationally, bringing global awareness to domestic terror.
We honor her this month as a Black, United States, and world history icon who risked everything for collective survival.
Wells’ life work required a refusal to be comfortable while injustice thrived. Today’s culture often defines wellness through a lens of personal comfort. We have been conditioned to believe that wellness means adjusting to the sickness of the “isms” and phobias we named last week. And the adaptation gets called maturity. Ida B. Wells rejected that version of health. She used her talent to confront racial terror and sexism directly. Her refusal to normalize injustice is what proves that Ida B. Wells was, indeed, well.
So as attacks on free speech intensify…
As journalists are being criminalized again…
As the danger of speaking the truth grows even louder…
We can look to the discipline of Ida B. Wells to:
Be well enough to stay informed
Be well enough to resist comfort when comfort asks you to look away
Be well enough to use your pen or your voice in meaningful ways and refuse to normalize what dehumanizes you
Be well. I dare you.
Aaaand, today is my birthday! WooHoo! Don’t Stop. Git it. Git it.🥳💃🏿😂
I’m filled with gratitude for life, for community, and for the opportunity to continue this work alongside people who care about truth, dignity, and collective freedom.
If you’re able, I invite you to support our work with a birthday donation to Clever Communities in Action. Your contribution helps us carry forward the legacy of truth-tellers like Ida B. Wells by equipping young people and communities with literacy, historical knowledge, and the courage this moment requires.
We deeply appreciate your continued support.
In Love and Solidarity,
Starr Armstrong
Founder | Clever Communities in Action