A Second Sight: How the Wonder and Vision of Black Mediamakers Push America Toward Freedom – The Essential Role of Journalism in American Democracy

by Sarah J. Jackson

Since the nation’s founding, Black Americans have had a unique perspective on the U.S. experience—a “second sight”—that reveals the truth about the nation to itself. As renowned media scholar Sarah J. Jackson charts in this bold and daring masterwork, at the center of this effort has been an extraordinary cast of Black journalists, photographers, filmmakers, radio hosts, podcasters and other mediamakers who have drawn on the visionary tradition of second sight to advance democracy and broaden our most fundamental American values.

When Black mediamakers raise their voices and speak uncomfortable truths about America, they shape memories of the nation and push us toward a future more closely aligned with our espoused values. For two centuries, this “second sight” has been an overlooked engine of American democracy.

Drawing from W.E.B. Du Bois’s philosophical work, deep historical analysis, and dozens of interviews with today’s most active Black mediamakers, A Second Sight shows these visionaries positioned at the margins of their industries and navigating fraught relationships to power. They’ve warned of the greatest dangers to democracy—from slavery to Nazism, and mass incarceration to misinformation. Their work is central to our culture and politics. Yet it is devalued, met with violent censure, or achieved only via ingenious workarounds to deliberate obstructions. This tension has sharpened their commitments to truth.

Now one of our nation’s foremost scholars of American media, Sarah J. Jackson, presents an appraisal that situates Black mediamakers at the vanguard of telling the American story. Brilliant, urgent and illuminating, A Second Sight is an authentic and candid grappling with a discordant thread in the American fabric and, in tracing a bolder vision for the nation, presents a way forward.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

312 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 16, 2026

About the author

Sarah J. Jackson is Presidential Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A Second Sight is the sort of book I like to read slowly and take everything in. It’s a blend of historical analysis and a critique of the politics of the matter of Black media in America throughout the years. What I found very interesting is that in most cases, Black journalists and philosophers pointed out the dangers of fascism and the abhorrent practice of enslaving people long before the white press did the same.

I do have to say that A Second Sight does read more like a scholarly textbook at times, but hey, that’s okay! Sarah J Jackson is schooling us on the ways Ida Tarbell, W.E.B Dubois, and others contributed to the media in America, and how they were fighting for democracy from the beginning. It is important to acknowledge the heavy lifting Black journalists did and continue to do to help hold on to democracy.

If you follow Bargain Sleuth Reviews, you can see that my reading the past 18 months has taken a more political direction. I would hope for everyone’s sake in the United States, more and more people are doing the same.

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Black mediamakers—often devalued—have historically shaped American memory and pushed the nation toward its espoused values. This book highlights their crucial warnings about threats to democracy, arguing that their work is central to American culture and politics, offering a path forward for the nation. Eye-opening, informative, and easy to read, this book offers an important corrective to American media history.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.