As told to Hailey Evans
Dana James was born and raised in Des Moines, and she’s made it her mission to tell stories that center Black Iowans’ lived experiences and amplify their voices. She founded Black Iowa News in 2020 and the Black Iowa Newspaper in 2023.
She writes the column New Black Iowa on Substack as a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative and is a member of the national Black News Link.
James earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Grand View University. She serves as secretary of the Iowa Association of Black Journalists.
The following story has been formatted to be entirely in her words, and has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I’m fearless in that I don’t care what other people think about me. I refuse to let other people’s opinions dictate what I think I can and can’t do. I compete with myself. I try to outdo myself. Also, when invariable doubts creep in, I collect more information and data and use that to overcome it.
I’m at peace when I create and make decisions because my self-worth is not the sum of my efforts. I’m worthy just because — so that frees me to aim high.
As a Black woman who worked in predominantly white spaces for many years, I’ve always had to clap for myself and celebrate my wins because my contributions weren’t always as valued as others. Part of my confidence comes from the fact that I don’t crave validation from other people. I just give my best efforts, and I’m confident it’s more than enough.
Founding Black Iowa News wasn’t scary at all — and I don’t know if that’s where some of my fearlessness comes in, because some other people would have probably been put off. All these papers were closing at the time across the country, and there still are lots of Iowa papers closing down.
I’d worked at the Des Moines Register for seven years as a print journalist, but that was really before Google, Facebook, social media. It was very old school as far as beats and sources and things like that. And so it was a change; it was a new world to me, starting out on Substack.
I started Black Iowa News during the pandemic, really as a reaction to it. I felt like I could do a good job at getting information out to people that was credible and I could help them stay safe. It was like, “I’m going to start this, and I’m going to try to help save people.”
I was picking lots of people’s brains about how to go about this, and then I just got to that moment that I was like, “I’m going to start a newspaper.” It just felt like a natural progression.
I was on a call with some other Iowa journalists, and Chuck Offenburger said I was either crazy or a visionary, and I said I would take either of those. I was OK with being either.
When you want to do something, you do it. And you can see obstacles, and you know they’re there, but I don’t perceive them as being something that I can’t get over. I think, well, OK, I’m still going to do it. So, yeah, of course it does take some fearlessness.
There was only one slight moment of hesitation, and that’s when I was on the road to deliver it. And I thought to myself, “Wait a minute, what if I get there and nobody wants this? Maybe I should have done more talking to people beforehand about what they wanted.”
But I got there and within minutes, people were teared up because they were so thankful. So sometimes I think we do things that maybe other people think are fearless, but at the same time you’re just carrying out your mission. Working on Black Iowa News, doing a newspaper, I accepted that this is a mission.
I do feel great responsibility to represent my community well, to give them credible, trustworthy, high-quality information. I have small communities, towns where the local newspaper closed down and there’s a lack of information, places like that where they’re asking me to bring them Black Iowa News. I’ve had libraries request to be distributed to.
There was a church in Des Moines that was like, “Hey, we want 200 of your newspapers because our church group had no idea that Black women were dying at six times the rate of white women and we want to be a part of changing this.” This is a predominantly white church.
Black Iowa News might be primarily written for Black people, but it’s news that everyone needs to know. I’ve had white people write me letters, saying it’s helped change their perspective, and how meaningful it is. Because always, always, always, I want Black Iowa News to be about solutions. What I’m doing is really just wanting to inspire people. It’s part of the mission, to give them a voice, have them be heard. At the end of the day, it’s a better conversation for all included in it.
There’s also great joy in being the one to create something that’s stretching from border to border, stretching from Sioux City to Davenport, from Mason City to Creston.
Also, I knew I was going to be the only Black statewide newspaper that I was founding. I’m probably the only Black woman that has ever run a statewide newspaper this long. One of my friends told me that like 100 years ago there were some Black women who ran a publication of sorts. It wasn’t like a statewide newspaper, but it was something. That’s the only frame of reference that anyone can find.
So I feel like I really do have that title of being the only Black woman running a statewide newspaper. But in the beginning, I wasn’t setting out to do that. I was just setting out to make sure that people stay safe during the pandemic, because we were swimming in all these conflicting messages.
A lot of people, when I tell the story, when I go to different communities around the state, they’re astounded.
“Who told you you could start a newspaper?”
And I’m like, “Well, I didn’t need anybody to tell me. I knew that I could do it.”
I don’t know if that makes me fearless or if I just look at failure differently. We hear people talk about failure and they see it as a kind of black and white thing — you fail or you succeed. I don’t see it like that; I view everything as just an iteration. Like I try something and then fine tune it. And fine tune it again. And so in that way, if I’m fearless at all, it’s because I don’t see the “no” and I don’t see a failure as “stop.”
One person told me when I said I was starting a newspaper, “We tried that and it didn’t work.” I laughed inside, because if that was the universe’s way of telling me not to do it, I still did it. The limit to me doing anything is myself.
Founding Black Iowa News has changed me in so many ways. I’ve leaned into the fact that I’m a creator. I’ve leaned into the fact that I’m a founder. I see myself as being an owner, as really being a champion for other people to become owners. For other young people in particular.
I also feel like being a Black woman in Iowa, I’ve also been undervalued at many places that I’ve worked. And part of the fact that I can stand on my own feet and weather the criticism is because of that. I had to stand taller. I had to be satisfied with my own work. And that’s not me being conceited — it’s me saying my work has value, but other people might not find the value in it because I’m a Black woman.
You know how you walk around downtown, you see people with their little badges hanging from their waistbands, and you know they’re working at these big companies? I’ve worked at those big companies, but I never felt I belonged there for a variety of reasons. I’m not a clock in, clock out every day, the same routine kind of person. It took me a long, long time to realize that I don’t need to fit in with them.
Sometimes I’ve found that between like 8-11 p.m., I’m super creative, so that’s a good time for me to write and do things. What I’m able to do now is really work to my own strength, so it’s not that nine-to-five.
I discovered I really like working outside too, which all really started because of the pandemic that I found myself really working from the park downtown. That was like a safe space, and then I just got used to rolling the windows down in my car and writing. I just don’t really see myself sitting at a formal desk now.
I feel like there’s so much creativity and genius in our community that’s untapped because this person didn’t go to college, or this person lives in this zip code, or this person has this in their background.
And I say to hell with all of that: Use your genius for your passion. If you let go of this expectation of perfection, if you let go of this expectation that it’s going to be easy, I feel like that’s what people need to understand. I don’t have a business degree, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be great at business, because there’s too many books and webinars and Zooms out here for me not to find out what I need to know.
I think part of my success in the business is that I took time to figure out all of that. I’m constantly on the hunt for that latest thing that will help me be a better writer, that will help me be better at business, that will help me get more grants, that will help me display information more tactically to help people feel absorbed in what’s there. It’s just you have to stay in a constant state of learning. And anyone could do that. So to me, it’s not scary.
Don’t absorb these messages that tell you otherwise, that say the college, white picket fence is the only way to happiness because for many people, that’s not going to be it.
People think they’ve made it when you go live in the suburbs and you follow this path that’s laid out. Everyone doesn’t live like that and it’s OK to be different, it’s OK to forge on your own path, it’s OK to go against the grain, actually it’s perfect because there’s a lot less noise when it’s you against you. That’s the only person who has to compete with you, isn’t it?
Create the career, create the job, create the organization that you don’t currently see. You don’t need fancy degrees to do that.
To use the planting analogy, it’s just planting seeds. I feel like I’m planting seeds all over the state, helping connect people and helping people be seen. And so that, to me, that’s a great thing.
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