This afternoon, I had the pleasure of a long and wide-ranging conversation with Ava DuVernay—a producer and director whose work has consistently helped Americans see themselves and their history more clearly.
We spoke about many things: where we are as a country, what history can still teach us, and what democratic coalitions have looked like when they have succeeded—and when they have failed. But we also spoke about the present moment, which has a way of intruding on even the most reflective conversations.
In particular, we discussed the arrest of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort while they were doing their jobs—documenting events of public importance. These arrests are not isolated incidents. They are signals. And history teaches us that when journalists, especially African American journalists, are treated as criminals for observing power, democracy itself is being tested.
Ava and I talked about responsibility. History does not move on its own. It moves when people decide to act within it. The First Amendment does not enforce itself. It survives because citizens insist that it matters—not only when their own speech is threatened, but when someone else’s is.
Today is a good day to talk about the First Amendment. Not abstractly, and not nostalgically, but concretely. Who is being prevented from speaking? Who is being punished for witnessing? Who benefits when journalists are made afraid?
It is also a good day to celebrate journalists. Not because they are perfect—they are not—but because their work makes self-government possible. Journalism is how power becomes visible. It is how facts enter public life. It is how a society argues with itself without tearing itself apart.
Ava reminded me, in her own way, that storytelling is a form of civic care. Journalists practice that care every day, often at personal risk. When we defend them, we are not taking sides in a culture war. We are taking sides with democracy.
So I encourage you to talk about the First Amendment today. Talk about it with friends, students, colleagues. Ask what it requires of us now—not in theory, but in practice. And take a moment to thank a journalist.
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