Mimi Rosenberg has been a WBAI producer and host since 1968. She currently co-produces two weekly programs: “Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report” and “Equal Rights and Justice.” She has served on WBAI’s Local Advisory Board and written papers on community media. She is also a longtime lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, serving low-income and immigrant clients. In addition, she is an activist in many movements for social justice, anti-racism and liberation. She discusses why the Ida B. Wells Media Defence Network was founded, “We defend a political speech that uplifts weapons for justice, not shields for oppression with (our) blood and sweat and tears. We, the people, we the people have fought to uncover the truth of America’s past, from indigenous genocide and slavery, to those who built careers on the backs of scapegoated, immigrants, mischaracterized for power, profit, and gain. That’s why independent media matters. To expose the lies, amplify truth from below and make communication a tool of liberation, not domination.”
Audio Transcript
Message from Mimi Rosenberg to the Grassroots Radio Conference
Spokane, Washington
September 12, 2025
This is a Call to Action
We are not waiting for permission to speak. We are arming ourselves with truth and courage — ready to launch a national broadcast: Free Speech Movement, a tsunami of resistance to wash over Trumpism.
We call upon you to work with us to develop the Ida B. Wells Pledge of Resistance — a collective vow to:
- Speak truth without fear,
- Resist tyranny in all its forms,
- Defend each other — boldly and together.
We are crafting the Press Freedom Defense Code — a living strategy to:
- Protect our voices,
- Prepare our communities,
- Act before repression takes root,
- And stand united to beat it back if necessary.
We are launching a Free Speech Movement — across radio, digital, and community media — to amplify dissent, expose suppression, and make truth visible. This is your call to join us. To help shape the pledge. To build the protocols. To raise the signal.
We Will Not Capitulate: Media Resistance in the Age of Retaliation
Greetings to all the broadcasters, media warriors, and defenders of the mic in the room. I may be on Zoom — but I’m tuned in to the frequency of resistance, and I’m honored to be part of this transmission.
We gather here not merely to speak — but to stand. To stand in the lineage of resistance. To stand against a new McCarthyism — one that wears the mask of regulation but wields the sword of repression.
We are not just broadcasters. We are the keepers of memory, the carriers of truth, the architects of resistance, and the amplifiers of power to the people. Our purpose: to defend media and political expression, to protect the right to dissent against power and the status quo, and to prepare — politically and legally — to defend one another and all who dare speak truth to power.
Because when that knock at the door comes — and it will — we must be ready. Not with self-censorship, before a single shot has been fired. But with political wit, grassroots support, and legal acumen. We must be ready to stand up, to speak out, and to fight back. Because today, we face a coordinated campaign — to surveil, to suppress, to silence.
Media is not neutral. It is not a mirror — it is a battleground. It either serves power — or it is a megaphone to serve the people. It organizes. It mobilizes. It liberates.
As Antonio Gramsci taught: Media is a site of ideological struggle. It is where hegemony is built — or broken. It is the terrain where the ruling class manufactures consent — or where the people manufacture dissent.
The Airwaves Are Not Just Frequencies — They Are Frontlines
And today — those frontlines are under siege. The forces of repression — not merely regulatory, but authoritarian and embedded — are no longer at the gates. They are already in the halls of power — shaping policy, criminalizing dissent, and silencing truth. So, we pledge resistance. We must take affirmative action — not tomorrow, but now. We must unite, collectivize our voices, and broadcast boldly.
The Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network calls on our fellow broadcasters: In the face of censorship, retaliation, and repression — we do not retreat. We rise. We resist. We broadcast truth. We invite you to help shape, commit to, and herald — for all to hear — a Pledge of Resistance, a Liberation Broadcast Code: A living pledge to defy silence, to confront suppression, and to stand boldly against authoritarian control.
This is not just a statement. It’s a signal. It’s a stand. It’s a refusal to be managed, muted, or made to yield. Join us. Build with us. Broadcast resistance on our platforms — radio, podcast, livestream, public forums — as a freedom pulpit to launch a movement.
Let this be the beginning of a Free Speech Uprising
Let that be our mic check — to follow the announcement of our Pledge of Resistance, our Liberation Broadcast Code, our Free Speech Uprising that asserts our right to political expression. A media movement that defends press freedom. A movement that upholds the First Amendment — not as a relic, but as a living, breathing shield for the people.
We say it loud — through our Pledge of Resistance, our Liberation Broadcast Code to Uphold Press Freedom: We pledge unwavering resistance to censorship and media interference. We reject political and legal efforts to suppress political speech — and the quiet force of self-censorship that often precedes open repression.
Our commitment is clear: We will not cooperate with infringement. With grassroots solidarity and media companionship, we will defend press freedom.
I’m Mimi Rosenberg, and I speak on behalf of the Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network — a collective inspired by the unyielding legacy of Ida B. Wells, who wielded her pen like a sword, slicing through the lies that cloaked lynching in respectability. She exposed the machinery of racial terror — lynchings as the public spectacles of domination, fired up by the press, sanctioned by the courts — staged to reinforce the power of white supremacy and the elite who benefited from it. For her courage, she was hunted, her press burned, and her voice nearly silenced. But she refused exile from truth. She stood against white supremacy, patriarchal violence, and the complicity of polite society — and she wrote anyway.
We carry her fire. Like Ida B. Wells, we speak truth to power. We protect the storytellers, the journalists, the voices that risk everything to resist repression. We carry Ida’s fire — and we take our place beside those who report under siege.
Our duty is clear: to defend and amplify the voices of Palestinian journalists who enter the field not merely as reporters, but as witnesses to history, guardians of memory, and the eyes and ears for the world who risk everything to document what empire seeks to eclipse from view and to erase. Over 200 have been targeted for death — not for what they did, but for what they dared to show the world. They are the eyes and ears of people facing extinction. We fight for their right to speak. We fight for their stories to be heard. We fight so their signal reaches the masses.
Shireen Abu Akleh, the revered Palestinian American Al Jazeera correspondent assassinated by the Israel Occupation Forces, covered up by the Biden administration, slain while reporting in Jenin, and by Anas Al-Sharif, the Gazan journalist and videographer targeted for death by the IOF in Gaza after refusing to abandon his frontline reporting carried forward the torch ignited by Ida B. Wells.
And at home: Mumia Abu-Jamal — journalist, political prisoner — even from behind prison walls built to silence and bury him has refused to be erased. For over forty years, he’s turned a cell into a newsroom, a microphone into a weapon. His journalism — sharp, radical, unyielding — is the heartbeat of Prison Radio, challenging empire, exposing injustice, proving that truth cannot be caged. As Malcolm X warned: “The media’s the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent… Because they control the minds of the masses.”
So, we pledge resistance. We must unite and act — using our broadcast platforms and public forums as freedom pulpits to launch a Free Speech Uprising. We assert our collective stand: to defend the right to political expression, to protect press freedom, to uphold the First Amendment — not as a relic, but as a living, breathing shield for the people and by the people.
The New Assault: Trumpism and the Machinery of Repression
The history of media suppression is not a relic — it’s a rehearsal. And today, the curtain is rising again. Trump’s second administration has escalated the war on dissent. Universities are being purged — not just of programs, but of people. Students — expelled, kidnapped, deported. Faculty — fired. Entire departments — dismantled under the guise of “patriotic education.”
Newsrooms are being extorted — pressured to settle frivolous lawsuits, not just to silence dissent, but to extract wealth — to line the pockets of those adding yet another layer to the putrid, guttural gold-leaf already plating the Trump toilets.
Let’s be clear: Project Esther isn’t about fighting antisemitism. It’s a political tool — one that exploits real fears to mask ultra-nationalist settler colonialism, echoing fascist tactics. By conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, it shields genocidal policies, erases the far right’s antisemitism, and weaponizes Jewish identity to justify state violence. And now — the Heritage juggernaut is preparing to release an 800-page legal deconstruction of the Constitution — a chilling document designed to:
- Strip away court protections,
- Gut federal agencies,
- And consolidate unchecked power in the hands of one man.
This is not policy. This is preparation for authoritarian rule. That is why we fight. The Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network exists to reclaim the narrative — from the plutocrats and their sycophants, from their enforcers in uniform and in suits. We are here to amplify the voices of the silenced, to ensure that the stories of struggle, dignity, and defiance are never erased. Media must not pacify — it must provoke. It must not conceal — it must reveal. And above all, it must belong to the people. The airwaves are not just frequencies. They are frontlines. And today, those frontlines are under siege.
Centuries of Suppression — and Defiance
From the beginning, the state has tried to control the narrative. From the founding of this republic, the state has feared the power of the press — and sought to silence it.
In 1798, the Sedition Act jailed Benjamin Franklin Bache for daring to criticize the president.
During the Civil War, Lincoln shut down over 300 newspapers — not with rebuttal, but with closure. In 1918, Woodrow Wilson revived sedition, banning socialist publications, jailing Eugene Debs for speaking peace. The McCarthy era brought blacklists and fear. HUAC, the House Un-American Activities Committee, hunted writers, and the Hollywood Ten stood firm — jailed, blacklisted, but unbowed. Through the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, COINTELPRO stalked the civil rights movement, surveilling, discrediting, and assassinating voices like Fred Hampton and targeting Mumia Abu-Jamal. In 1987, Reagan buried the Fairness Doctrine, unleashing a flood of partisan propaganda and drowning public accountability. And in the post-9/11 era, the Espionage Act was resurrected — not to protect the nation, but to prosecute whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange for exposing war crimes.
We face a coordinated campaign to silence dissent — not just through batons and bans, but through algorithms, contracts, and code. Meta’s platforms — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp — suppress Palestinian voices. Flags are flagged. Translations distort. AI links “Palestinian” to weapons, while “Israeli” prompts smiling children. This is not accidental. It’s systemic. Israel’s digital propaganda machine floods social media with emotional content and influencer campaigns, burying Palestinian narratives. The BBC, under pressure, softens language, revises headlines, and silences humanitarian appeals. Journalists report censorship — both internal and imposed. Meanwhile, Palantir Technologies, a CIA-funded firm, powers digital repression. Its platforms track immigrants, activists, and protestors. Its AI flags pro-Palestinian speech as “terrorist-related,” triggering detentions and visa denials. This is algorithmic repression — where dissent is criminalized by code.
But every era of repression has met resistance. Even under shadow, voices rose. Edward R. Murrow warned: “Dissent is not disloyalty.” Blacklisted, watched — still, truth was printed.
Seymour Hersh exposed massacre. The Nation and The Daily Worker kept publishing truth, even as their writers were blacklisted and surveilled. Daniel Ellsberg risked all. Pacifica Radio stood defiant. It broadcast from North Vietnam, challenged war narratives, and endured bombings and FCC threats. Its stations were investigated for “subversion” by HUAC and the Senate. Licenses were withheld. Tapes demanded. And in 1970, KPFT in Houston was bombed — twice — by the Ku Klux Klan for airing progressive voices. Still, Pacifica refused to be silenced — airing resistance. Pacifica also stood firm when National Public Radio (NPR) caved to pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police and refused to air commentaries by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Pacifica broadcast his essays anyway, defending the First Amendment and the right of the incarcerated to speak truth to power.
GI papers spoke from the ranks. In apartheid’s grip, underground presses defied. Robert Williams pulsed Radio Free Dixie from exile. The Chicago Defender, Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier named lynching, voter theft. The Black Panther Party press roared — bold, unbought. The Burning Spear still burns. Julian Assange, through WikiLeaks, cracked empire’s mask. And through it all, Cedric J. Robinson taught us that the Black Radical Tradition arose in response to racial capitalism — a system where racial hierarchies are woven into the fabric of capitalism itself. He traced this tradition through centuries of resistance: from African cosmologies and slave revolts to anti-colonial struggles and radical Black thought. Robinson reminded us: resistance isn’t a moment — it’s a lineage. From W.E.B. Du Bois to Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis, C.L.R. James, Assata Shakur, Fred Hampton, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Robert Williams — these are voices that refused silence. Voices that still speak. Voices that carry the fire. Repression never went unchallenged. There was always resistance — bold, principled, and unyielding.
Yet just as resistance rose, so too did accommodation. And history shows us: when the press tries to appease power, it loses its soul — and the people lose their shield. In the 1920s and ’30s, liberal media outlets in the U.S. and Europe attempted to normalize Mussolini and Hitler. The Saturday Evening Post serialized Mussolini’s autobiography, while The New York Times and Christian Science Monitor portrayed Hitler as a clownish figure who would be tamed by “sober” politicians. This normalization helped fascism gain legitimacy — and when the terror came, the press was powerless to stop it.
During McCarthyism, many liberal outlets echoed the hysteria of HUAC, blacklisting artists, journalists, and unionists. Those who tried to straddle the line — neither fully resisting nor fully endorsing — were swept up in the purge. Only those who stood firm, like Edward R. Murrow, helped turn the tide.
In recent years, liberal media has flirted with the alt-right — all in the name of “balance” and “free speech.” Platforms gave voice to white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and fascist ideologues — only to be flooded with disinformation and hate. Self-censorship and appeasement are not shields. They are invitations to deeper repression. The lesson is clear: You cannot platform fascism and expect it to play fair.
These examples show why you cannot compromise with fascism or authoritarianism and expect to continue business as usual. The liberal press that tried to normalize Nazism, appease McCarthyism, or “balance” alt-right voices found itself discredited, co-opted, or destroyed.
Fascism does not negotiate — it consumes. Self-censorship and appeasement are not shields; they are invitations to further repression. The true test of a free press is not how it performs in times of comfort, but how it responds when truth is dangerous. KPFA and Pacifica chose resistance — and in doing so, they became lifelines for movements, voices for the voiceless, and proof that media can be a weapon of liberation. When the state seeks to control the narrative, the people must seize the mic. You cannot compromise with fascism and survive. History is clear: appeasement is not protection — it is surrender. Media must not pacify — it must provoke. It must not conceal — it must reveal. And above all, it must belong to the people.
History is clear: When media tries to appease authoritarian power, it is not spared — it is consumed. Fascism does not negotiate. It devours. Self-censorship is not protection — it is surrender. So, we call on you — journalists, broadcasters, truth-tellers: Reclaim the airwaves as tools of resistance. Defend the right to dissent — in every newsroom, classroom, and public square. Refuse to normalize fascism under the guise of “balance.” Build and support independent media that speaks truth to power. Amplify the voices of the silenced — and never let their stories be erased.
As we see though, even progressive institutions are not immune to pressure. While Pacifica Radio ultimately became a vital platform for airing Mumia Abu-Jamal’s commentaries — it was not without internal conflict and resistance. When Noelle Hanrahan, founder of Prison Radio, first brought Mumia’s recordings to KPFA, she was met with pushbacks. Some staff dismissed the commentaries as too radical. One reportedly said: “Noelle, we will not play that track on our airwaves. It sounds like someone reading the Communist Manifesto on a soapbox.” There were standing policies against airing Mumia’s voice — even against promoting rallies in his support. This wasn’t just censorship from the outside. It was internal suppression — driven by the fear of controversy and political backlash. A tension between Pacifica’s radical roots and the pressure to moderate, to sanitize, to appease. But it was persistence — Hanrahan’s, and the grassroots — that broke through. Eventually, Mumia’s voice became a fixture of Pacifica’s programming. And when NPR caved to pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police, refusing to air Mumia’s commentaries, Pacifica stood firm — even when some within still resisted.
The lesson is clear: We must shore up our institutions — morally and politically — to withstand both external repression and internal compromise. Self-censorship may buy temporary comfort, but it costs credibility, alienates movements, and weakens the mission. The press must choose to stand with the people — or become complicit in their silencing. If we lose our democratic structure, we lose our soul — and the fight.
Pacifica, born in resistance, now risks being hollowed out by the very forces it once defied. It has drifted toward elitist governance, codified through unlawful bylaw changes. Transparency has been replaced by opacity; accountability by control. This shift has pushed out the very voices that built the station — often those who had to fight to be heard. Now, they’re relegated to secondary frequencies while power consolidates in the hands of a few, cloaked in procedural language and meritocratic pretense that echoes supremacist logic. This is not inclusion. It’s exclusion masquerading as process.
Pacifica was meant to be a mosaic — a chorus of the marginalized, the defiant. But careerism and accommodationism has crept in, shrinking the circle when it should be expanding. To confront external repression, we must first confront internal failures. Pacifica cannot meet this moment by clinging to exclusionary governance. It must democratize — not symbolically, but structurally. That means convening a bylaws convention rooted in transparency, accountability, and community power. It means expanding inclusivity in production, representation, and decision-making.
As diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is dismantled and white supremacist rule reasserts itself, we must resist sanitized liberalism. Only radical inclusion and democratic renewal can help Pacifica — and all media — withstand the repression of Trumpist fascism. This is the voice we must end with — and begin again. We’re building a network of media defenders — journalists, producers, broadcasters, and truth-tellers — united against repression and committed to protecting the people’s voice.
That’s why we’re launching a Pledge of Resistance — a collective commitment to truth, justice, and defiance. It will guide our ethics and shape our response to censorship and surveillance.
We will establish a National Day for the Declaration of Broadcast Freedom, and produce regular broadcasts to defend press freedom, uplift movement voices, and expose repression. Because press freedom is not just the absence of censorship — it is the presence of courage, accountability, and radical empathy.
We’re also developing media defense protocols — to protect rare data, secure sensitive information, and resist government intrusion politically, legally, and technologically.
Join the Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network. Help us defend the airwaves — to keep radio what it was meant to be: A voice of the people, by the people, for the people. Because the fight for press freedom is the fight for democracy itself. Because when we build together, we build institutions that can’t be bought, broken, or buried. And because the truth — spoken boldly — is our greatest weapon against repression.
Pacifica must not become easy prey for a reactionary FCC, plutocratic governance, or the erasure of the very history it was built to amplify. Fascism feeds on forgetting — erasing people’s history to justify violence and profit from lies. So, we say: No.
With our Pledge of Resistance and Code of Defense, the Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network will stand on the front lines — to claw back democratic space, reverse reactionary bylaw changes, and codify DEI not as aspiration, but as fact. We will reclaim Pacifica as radio for the people — by the people. And we will take our place in the fight against the new McCarthyism.
The Silence That Empowers
The ostrich approach and quietude in the face of repression may be a personal choice, but it has profound political consequences. Self-censorship and reticence to confront the juggernaut of Trumpian fascism create a vacuum, and into that vacuum flows propaganda. It is fascism’s first victory: when we silence ourselves out of fear.
History teaches us: Capitulation does not protect — it empowers the oppressor. The Ida B. Wells Media Defense Network is not just a platform — it is a frontline. Join us to meet the moment, Ida B. Wells Pledge of Resistance — a united declaration from journalists, broadcasters, and media allies to defend press freedom, protect dissent, and confront repression head-on. This is not just a statement — it’s a strategic warning to those who seek to silence truth and erase history. We pledge to:
- Speak truth without fear,
- Resist tyranny in all its forms,
- Defend each other politically, legally, and collectively.
This pledge is our shield and our signal — a call to mobilize, to prepare, and to act before repression takes root. We are putting the forces of censorship, surveillance, and suppression on notice. No silence. No surrender. No compromise.
We’ve developed the Press Freedom Defense Code—a living framework that equips communities, journalists, and media allies to prepare, protect, and defend against threats to free expression. This code is our shield and strategy, combining legal support, grassroots mobilization, and ethical clarity to ensure we are ready to act before repression takes root.
As part of the Ida B. Wells Pledge of Resistance, we are launching Free Speech Programming across all our platforms — radio, digital, and community media. This is a collective act of defiance and visibility, putting the forces of repression on notice. These broadcasts will amplify movement voices, defend the right to dissent, and expose the machinery of censorship and surveillance. They are not just programs — they are declarations of our refusal to be silenced.
We will speak — and with our collective pledge of resistance. We will resist — with our pledge of resistance. We speak truth. We resist tyranny. We defend each other. No silence. No surrender. No compromise.
Speak out. Broadcast resistance — because media is not just a tool — it is a torch. And we must be the spark that rekindles a media democracy movement.
And now, under Trump’s second administration, we see the weaponization of colorblindness — a cynical manipulation used to dismantle DEI programs, erase Black history, and uproot working-class narratives. This is not neutrality — it is ideological warfare. It revives the worst parts of our history to justify an extreme nationalism held up by racism and xenophobia. Media institutions, once pressured to open their doors to the marginalized, are now retreating — kicking out those who had to kick in the doors. The most liberatory, democratic movements of our history are being suppressed. Because fascism needs erasure. It needs the silencing of people’s history to profit from their dispossession.
We will not be managed, muted, or made to yield. If they come, we stand ready — politically, legally, collectively. Like Ida B. Wells, like James Baldwin, like Marie Colvin — we confront power, not cower before it. This is our pledge: to speak, to resist, to defend. As Malcolm X warned: “The media’s the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent… Because they control the minds of the masses.”