Black History Month Spotlight: Imara Jones

For Black History Month, we're spotlighting Imara Jones — journalist, founder, and one of the clearest voices in American media on trans lives and social justice. Her career runs from the White House to Viacom to her own newsroom, and every stop points the same direction.

Start with the résumé. Degrees from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. Economic policy work in the Clinton White House. Communications posts at Viacom, where she led the award-winning Know HIV-AIDS campaign — early proof she could move public understanding at scale.

She left corporate communications for media in 2010, and in 2018 she founded TransLash Media, a cross-platform nonprofit that produces journalism and narrative work meant to change how the US understands and accepts transgender people. The output speaks for itself. The TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones won the 2023 Outstanding Podcast Award from GLAAD, and her investigative series "The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality" earned an Excellence in Podcasting Award from the National LGBTQ+ Journalists Association.

The honors have followed the work. Jones is the first trans person to receive the Journalist of Distinction Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, and in 2023 Time Magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People. For a journalist who spent years covering people the press ignored, that kind of recognition marks a shift.

None of this is separate from who she is. Jones reports on trans lives as a Black trans woman, and it shows in the precision of the coverage. When she takes apart a policy or a smear campaign, she knows exactly what it costs the people on the receiving end — and her reporting on the LGBTQ+ community carries that weight.

That's why she belongs in a Black History Month spotlight. Jones didn't wait for legacy outlets to cover trans lives with care. She built the newsroom that does it, then won the industry's respect on her own terms. Watch her work — it's where the record is being kept.