Whenever someone asks Caresse Jackman why some journalists of color keep bringing up the past in their reporting, Gray Television’s InvestigateTV national consumer investigative reporter has a ready answer.

“The remnants of what happened in the past still happen to this day. ‘It was not that long ago,’ is what I tell them,” Jackman told NPF Widening the Pipeline fellows during their March 11 virtual training. Adding that context in your story matters, Jackman said, “Whether it’s through broadcast, radio, or print, that there’s a reason why we are where we are today, is what I oftentimes tell people.”

Within her impressive body of hard-hitting investigative feature stories, perhaps the most profound example is Gray Television’s InvestigateTV “Sacred Ground”  series about African American cemeteries and burial grounds that have been neglected by state and local governments—or outright unearthed and displaced by builders and bureaucracies.

Jackman said that story grew from a tip she received from one of her high school coaches in Atlanta. “Caresse, you need to come down here. There’s been a fight that’s been going on for years, but nobody’s truly digging deep and addressing it,” he said. “It’s about some remains that were moved from one location to the next, but there was no respect at all into where they were placed next.”

The InvestigateTV team discovered dozens of other cases where African Americans are consistently fighting to protect the final resting places of their ancestors from construction and development. After the end of slavery, many African American families faced restrictions about where they could bury their loved ones, and throughout the U.S., local laws segregated burial sites by race. But African American burial grounds didn’t receive the same type of maintenance and record keeping that predominantly white burial grounds enjoyed.

Today many descendants of people buried in those sites are struggling to even locate their ancestors. When they are successful, they often find a site is in severe neglect and disrepair. And then they’re forced to navigate a series of often outdated laws and regulations. In many states, violating cemetery laws or removing remains without a permit is a misdemeanor, and in some it’s even a felony. But the Investigate TV team found that the permit process is rarely tracked for African American cemeteries,

For Jackman, the key to beginning this investigation was obvious. “I knew that I would like to file open records request with agencies, state agencies. To ask them, what are their records of cemeteries, specifically Black cemeteries?” And journalists must be thoroughly prepared before that big pitch to editors.

“I already knew before I went to my boss exactly what I wanted to look for,” Jackman said. “And again, do some digging on your project before you even begin it. Obviously, I knew that my source was coming to me with this information. What documents do you have? What property deeds do you have? Collect your receipts so you know exactly what you’re looking for, and that you know you could build a good foundation for a pitch to send to your boss. And also, conduct background calls or Zooms with people if you have an idea of what you want to talk about.”

Jackman told the journalists that months of strategizing, interviewing, and producing big investigations can be challenging, and there are times when you can wonder if all the hard work made a difference, But then there are times like what happened at the 2024 NICAR Convention in Baltimore when a young woman approached her during lunch with colleagues and asked, “Are you Caresse Jackman?”

“And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she said, ‘Well, I just wanted to let you know that I attended one of your sessions in Atlanta where you talked about your Sacred Ground series.’ And she said, ‘It gave me motivation to do what I wanted to do, which is create a database for murdered indigenous transgender women and broadcast it to the world.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, that’s moving.’”

Access the full transcript here.

The Widening the Pipeline Fellowship is sponsored by the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation and Lenovo. NPF is solely responsible for the content.