And during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 23, the leaders of the organization who represent a collective of 211 Black-owned newspapers in 32 states with a reach that extends to 20.1 million readers per week, said they intend to raise their voices in solidarity while issuing a list of four recommended action items that they’ll deliver to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Congress.

Missing among the many reasons given for the enormous and unchanging racial divide regarding the fairness of the American judicial system is the legacy of the long history of media segregation. During America’s Jim Crow years not only did African Americans maintain lives apart from white America but so did their media. “To most white Americans the black press was a voice unheard, its existence unknown or ignored,” explained Enoch P. Waters, an editor at the Chicago Defender.