Morehouse College proudly celebrates journalism professor Nicole Carr, who has been awarded the 2025 American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) Opinion/Op-Ed Award for her powerful essay, “The Black Press Democratized America,” published in The Emancipator.
Written in the days immediately following the 2024 presidential election, Carr’s award-winning piece emerged from her classroom at Morehouse—where she teaches and mentors the next generation of Black male journalists. The essay is both a warning and a call to action, urging the journalism industry to confront its complicity in normalizing racism, authoritarianism, and fascist tendencies that threaten American democracy.
“In the days following the 2024 presidential election, I decided it was necessary to remind American journalists that our industry was in crisis,” Carr wrote. “We may have already lost our window to atone... But if we still had time to make an about-face, we could lean into the history and practices of the Black press.”
That history is central to Carr’s work at Morehouse, where she developed and teaches the course History of the Black Press—an exploration of how Black journalists have long championed truth-telling and accountability in the face of systemic oppression.
Carr’s piece honors the legacy of the Black press while positioning it as a model for restoring integrity and equity in modern journalism. In recognizing her with one of its top honors, the ASJA has amplified the relevance of that legacy and the vital role Black women journalists continue to play in shaping public discourse.
Nicole Carr, an award-winning Atlanta-based investigative journalist, joined Morehouse College to help cultivate critical thinkers and storytellers who understand the stakes of their craft. Her work exemplifies the College’s mission to produce leaders who change the world through knowledge, service, and a commitment to justice.
You can read Carr’s full op-ed here: The Black Press Democratized America – The Emancipator
Congratulations, Professor Carr, and thank you for carrying forward the powerful tradition of the Black press—from the classroom to the national stage.