BREAKING: Bodycam footage shows the police lynching of unarmed Black teen Saveion McConnell. A Missouri deputy shot at him 9 times. At least 6 of those shots came after Saveion was already incapacitated on the pavement. The prosecutor says it was legal. Watch. 🧵

“A lot of these companies are pre-IPO, so they’re focused on three things. They’re focused on market penetration, they’re focused on product differentiation, and they’re focused on valuation. And valuation includes the data that they own,” EFF’s @tsnvaa.bsky.social told @kcdefender.bsky.social.

While Cutting Buses for the Poor, KCATA Signed a Secret Deal to Harvest Their Faces for a Private Company's AI

A secret contract. No policy protecting riders' data. The Defender obtained the deal KCATA signed to harvest bus riders' faces for AI.

kansascitydefender.com

Where would I be without the solid #journalism of the #FourthEstate? Lost! #stranded ! Thanks for the @kcdefender.bsky.social 's incredible work around elections! Especially in this crimson fucking state we live in. kansascitydefender.com/peoples-ball... If you live in #Missouri, #VOTE!

The People's Ballot: A Missouri 2026 Election Guide in a Time of Fascism

A survival guide under neo-fascism and neo-confederates. Everything on your ballot is here. Everything behind your ballot is here. August 4. November 3.

kansascitydefender.com

(sorry, I have strong opinions about the state of 'independent' journalism) Anyway, for real independent journalism I prefer @thetriibe.com and @kcdefender.bsky.social for good (if local) news.

BREAKING: Kansas City's North Lawn Tenant Union won a sweeping agreement. Rent frozen. Debt erased. Heat by October 1. And the first right to buy their homes. kansascitydefender.com/housing/nort...

WE HAVE A DEAL: North Lawn Tenants Win Sweeping Agreement With Landlord

Three years of organizing brought a Chicago landlord to a table in the Historic Northeast. Two hours and three languages later, the tenants of North Lawn walked out with frozen rents, erased debt, rep...

kansascitydefender.com

Twenty-five years ago this week, the body of a three-year-old Black girl was found in the woods at 59th and Kensington in Kansas City. For four years, the public had no name to say. The headlines called her Precious Doe. Her name was Erica Green. @kcdefender.bsky.social great story this morning.

Once again, an @npr.org station waffles on good vs evil.

The Kansas City Defender @kcdefender.bsky.social · 6mo ago

“The question KCUR is asking is not a new question. It is the question the white press has always asked about people who fight for Black freedom.” Read our latest; kansascitydefender.com/propagandaob...

"A piece about whether a white abolitionist deserves moral standing has been constructed entirely without the Black people whose lives and freedom he died to protect. One begins to understand, reading it, why John Brown felt the need to raise an army" This is the only kind of "history" MAGA wants

The Kansas City Defender @kcdefender.bsky.social · 6mo ago

“The question KCUR is asking is not a new question. It is the question the white press has always asked about people who fight for Black freedom.” Read our latest; kansascitydefender.com/propagandaob...

“The question KCUR is asking is not a new question. It is the question the white press has always asked about people who fight for Black freedom.” Read our latest; kansascitydefender.com/propagandaob...

KCUR Not Sure How to Feel About Ending Slavery – The Kansas City Defender

Still workshopping its position on chattel slavery, the NPR affiliate invites you into the conversation.

kansascitydefender.com

“The question KCUR is asking is not a new question. It is the question the white press has always asked about people who fight for Black freedom.” Read our latest; kansascitydefender.com/propagandaob...

KCUR Not Sure How to Feel About Ending Slavery – The Kansas City Defender

Still workshopping its position on chattel slavery, the NPR affiliate invites you into the conversation.

kansascitydefender.com

A cable signed by Marco Rubio directs every U.S. embassy worldwide to suppress “anti-American propaganda” using Pentagon psyops units. Weeks earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria had already directed the country’s secret police to arrest two citizens over tweets critical of israel & the U.S.

Rubio's Global War on "Anti-American" Speech Has Its First Prisoners – The Kansas City Defender

A cable signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio directs every U.S. embassy worldwide to suppress "anti-American propaganda" using Pentagon psyops units and recruited local influencers. Weeks earlier,...

kansascitydefender.com

"One radar system destroyed in this war cost [US] taxpayers a billion dollars. One. That is more than enough to fund every public school in Kansas City, build 5 full-service grocery stores ... and completely eradicate homelessness in Kansas City. Instead, it is smoldering wreckage in [Qatar]."

Harms Committed@harmscommitted.com · 7mo ago

"Over 165 schoolgirls buried. 66 schools bombed." "The capitalist imperialist forces that bomb children abroad are the same ones that starve our children." "Empire does not stop at the border. It starts at home." #Missouri #USA #Iran #Israel #Education #Military

"Over 165 schoolgirls buried. 66 schools bombed." "The capitalist imperialist forces that bomb children abroad are the same ones that starve our children." "Empire does not stop at the border. It starts at home." #Missouri #USA #Iran #Israel #Education #Military

Kill the Imperialist Lies: The Truth on the U.S. War Against Iran

Your government launched an illegal war, bombed 66 schools, killed 165 schoolgirls, and is asking you to pay $200 billion for it. Here is everything Western media won't tell you.

kansascitydefender.com

"[T]he return of CoreCivic to Leavenworth carries such a deep historical weight." "The haunting and once distant stain on the history of Kansas – Leavenworth's pro-slavery past – is once again knocking on the door." #Kansas #USA #Incarceration #Deportation #EthnicCleansing #Slavery #Torture

CoreCivic Kills People. Leavenworth Is Voting on Whether to Let Them Do It Here.

Leavenworth was founded by pro-slavery settlers and became the epicenter of Bleeding Kansas. That same city votes today on whether to resurrect a CoreCivic detention facility — a company that has already killed people in its custody — and open a 1,000-bed ICE camp to kidnap, cage, and disappear immigrants from our region. The shackles have always looked different here. This morning, Leavenworth decides what they look like in 2026.

kansascitydefender.com

"[V]ocabulary of empire." "Imagine bombs falling on Manhattan. Imagine ten waves of airstrikes over five days on a city that size and then try to tell me who the terrorists are." #USA #Iran #Israel #Protest #Media #Education #Military #Nuclear #Weapons

Who the Terrorists Are: On the American-Israeli War in Iran

They killed 165 schoolgirls on a Saturday morning, bragged about obtaining "complete control of Iranian skies," and plunged the planet into its most dangerous military crisis since 1945. A radical examination of American empire's suicidal hubris, the intelligence operations that manufactured the pretext, and the media apparatus selling civilizational destruction as foreign policy.

kansascitydefender.com

We are proud to announce Jon Jeter as the KC Defender's first International Correspondent. Jon is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, former WaPo Bureau Chief, and the author of one of the most important books written this century about Western economic policy. He currently writes from Kenya.

Left media workers & publishers are opening physical spaces aimed at building collective power. my latest for @truthout.org truthout.org/articles/the...

The Web Is Not Enough — Why These Left Media Workers Are Opening Physical Spaces

Corporations control the internet, so grassroots media workers are creating in-person spaces to build collective power.

truthout.org

"Every dollar spent settling lawsuits for [KCPD officer] Blayne Newton’s violence is a dollar stolen from mental health services, from housing, from education, from the material conditions that actually produce safety. @kcdefender.bsky.social kansascitydefender.com/justice/kcpd...

KCPD Holds Taxpayers Hostage While Shielding a Killer in Blue – The Kansas City Defender

The department has received $1.2 billion since 2022. Now it claims it can't afford basic services while an officer who has killed three people remains on patrol. A Kansas City Defender investigation.

kansascitydefender.com

BREAKING: Kansas City is one of seven "mega centers" in ICE's planned nationwide concentration camp network. A local real estate company, Platform Ventures, sold out Kansas City by selling a taxpayer-subsidized warehouse to make it happen. Federal agents are already terrorizing KC residents. 🧵

BREAKING: Kansas City is one of seven "mega centers" in ICE's planned nationwide concentration camp network. A local real estate company, Platform Ventures, sold out Kansas City by selling a taxpayer-subsidized warehouse to make it happen. Federal agents are already terrorizing KC residents. 🧵

Thank you to @sixtyinchesfromcenter.org for giving this piece a home. I really admire Ryan Sorrell and the @kcdefender.bsky.social— they move in alignment with a deep radical lineage and political values while also producing impactful work. Grateful for this conversation and more to come.

Third Spaces for the Struggle: On Build, Miss Willa’s, and the Work of Belonging - Sixty Inches From Center

A conversation between one of the new co-owners of Build Coffee & Books in Chicago, and Ryan Sorrell at The Kansas City Defender as they save and revive Missouri's oldest Black bookstore, Miss Willa's...

sixtyinchesfromcenter.org

support nonprofit Black community news in the Midwest! the KC Defender recently published a hell of a story about Kansas City nightlife establishment getting hit with RICO charges for conspiring to shut out Black business owners give it a read and give em a few bucks!

Federal RICO Case Alleges an All-White Board Runs Westport Nightlife Like a Racist Cartel

Federal judge allows civil rights conspiracy case to expand after a local Black entrepreneur’s motion sufficiently alleged evidence of "common discriminatory purpose" to exclude Black business owners ...

kansascitydefender.com

The Kansas City Defender @kcdefender.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Thank you! This is our donation page, its also currently NewsMatch season so all donations are doubled. We appreciate you greatly friend! kansascitydefender.com/support-us/

This is why I pay for the @kcdefender.bsky.social even though I don't live in KS anymore. Investigative journalism costs $$ and they do a great job

Every corner of this country deserves to have a journalistic resource and community asset like the @kcdefender.bsky.social - I hope their model gets taken up everywhere (PS - thanks for saving and stewarding the space of Willa's Books and Vinyl!)

At 84 years old, Willa Robinson is retiring and closing Willa’s Books and Vinyl, the store where she’s spent years selling works by Black artists. She’s placing the beloved space in the hands of @kcdefender.bsky.social, which will preserve her vast archive.

Collecting Black authors' books is Willa Robinson's 'thing.' A new generation preserves her legacy

At 84 years old, Willa Robinson is retiring and closing Willa’s Books and Vinyl, the store where she’s spent years selling works by Black artists. She’s placing the beloved space in the hands of The Kansas City Defender, which will preserve her vast archive.

kcur.org

Congratulations to our colleagues at @kcdefender.bsky.social for winning the 2025 @inn.org Community Champion Award! Read about their groundbreaking B-REAL Freedom School here.

The Small Division winner of the Community Champion Award is “BREAL Academy: Black Radical Education for Abolition and Liberation” from @kcdefender.bsky.social.

Movement media is a key tool to fight fascism. In the @truthout.org Center for Grassroots Journalism newsletter, see the latest from @wagingnonviolence.org @hammerandhope.bsky.social @convergencemag.com @kcdefender.bsky.social @deceleration.news & more! ❤️ mailchi.mp/truthout.org...

The original video: youtu.be/BhQjYxBcqxw The creator, @kcdefender.bsky.social , deserves way more views and subscriptions. As said in this video, this is the future of the United States.

St. Louis Tornado CLIMATE WARZONE and The People Fighting Back

YouTube video by The Kansas City Defender

youtu.be

Ever had that "make it make sense?!" feeling when you're reading the news? Yeah. Me too. Conceiving of journalism as political education -- as the @kcdefender.bsky.social does so well -- is one solution and way forward. @objectivejournos.bsky.social objectivejournalism.org/2025/08/make...

Make it make sense: movement media as political education

Even when our stories herald bad news, they can also help people make meaning and figure out our role in responding.

objectivejournalism.org