Historical struggles of Black journalism continue to persist

The Black Explosion staff at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1968 (Black Explosion Newspaper)

Of the University of Maryland’s many student news publications, there is only one whose purpose is to accurately share the stories of the university’s Black students.

The Black Explosion was founded in 1968 during the civil rights era to be the primary news source for Black students at UMD. They have told stories about the conflicts in Vietnam, the unveiling of the Frederick Douglass Square and today - the struggles Black people face inside and outside of their community. While the work of journalists for this publication is nothing short of exceptional, the fight to be recognized in the media industry, and on this campus, is still ongoing.

Unfortunately, the perspective of Black journalists is not perceived to be objective when covering news. In the media industry, this means a lack of representation of Black voices sharing the stories of Black people.

“Our voices have to be heard, and history has told us that we [Black people] are the only ones who tell our stories the right way, or in some cases the only ones who tell our stories at all,” said David Steele, former associate editor of the Black Explosion, who graduated in 1985.

Steele joined the paper during the first semester of his freshman year. The struggles for respect and access that Steele and his colleagues faced back then are the same struggles the paper faces today.

“We would fight for the same sort of levels of access and levels of respect because the Diamondback was just dominant [when it came] to campus journalism access. We wanted people to know we were just as legit, and it was very hard to do that,” said Steele. “There were places that legitimately thought, in the university, that the Diamondback was the only newspaper. It was an endless battle to make sure people respected us and treated us exactly the way the Diamondback was treated.”

Representation, access and respect are all still issues Black journalists face today. The lack of diversity in the journalism industry can make it an intimidating, and sometimes demoralizing space for Black journalists to enter.

“Historically journalism has been a white male-dominated industry. With that, [journalism] has had a lot of lapses and holes in the coverage of diverse topics or any topic in general,” said former editor Daniel Oyefusi, who graduated in 2019. “History has been told through the white male lens, and that has led to faulty reporting or the whole story not being told.”

The Black Explosion has lost traction since the ’70s and ’80s. However, there is still value in having a curated Black news publication. Unfortunately, it’s a struggle to find Black journalists in a predominantly white field.

“It’s tough cause there are only so many Black journalism students, so recruitment was pretty hard. I would have liked to try and get a more robust staff,” said Oyefusi.

This publication has struggled for years to get in adequate standing with the university. It has been hard for former writers to watch the generations of students after them struggle with the same issues they did.

“We used to have the conversations. A lot of ‘did we drop the ball?’, ‘did we fail somehow?’, or ‘is this just the way this industry works?’ - ‘Are they really gonna fight this hard to keep us out?’ To keep us fighting and scratching for what we deserve,” said Steele. “It’s frustrating cause we thought you all, your generation, would have it made and be an absolute force.”

The Black Explosion is a force, but that’s not to say it has not gone and continues to go through battles to stay that way. The question now is: will this staff be the last one to struggle for what they deserve?