This story is a collaboration between MindSite News, Capital B, The 19th, and The Nation, and was edited by MindSite News. Photos by Kuwilileni Hauwanga On April Fool’s Day last year, Philadelphia federal worker Darlene Tart-Scott arrived at work only to find out she had been laid off. Minutes later, she was on a train […]
Lottie L. Joiner, MindSite News
Lottie Joiner is an award-winning multimedia journalist whose work explores the conditions and lived experiences of those in underserved and marginalized communities. Lottie is the former editor-in-chief of The Crisis magazine, the official publication of the NAACP, where she also hosted and produced the weekly Facebook Live show, “Crisis Conversations.” Additionally, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, and Time.com.
Lottie is currently on the board of Free Speech TV. She is a former board member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS) and the Fund for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). In 2021, Lottie participated in the Maynard Institute’s Maynard 200 Fellowship Executive Leadership program and the Poynter Leadership Academy for Women in Media program. In 2025, Lottie was named a 2025-2026 Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism.
Posted inFederal Overhaul, Mental Health, Politics & Policy, The Workplace
A ‘Gut Punch’: Black Women Fired by DOGE Work to Overcome Shame and Self-Blame
This story is a collaboration between MindSite News, Capital B, The 19th, and The Nation, and was edited by MindSite News. Photographs by Kuwilileni Hauwanga When Sharon Davis opened her email at 5 a.m. on April 1, 2025, she learned that she had been fired from the Food and Drug Administration after 24 years of […]
Posted inFederal Overhaul, Mental Health, Politics & Policy, The Workplace
The Unseen Toll: Depression, Anxiety Plague Black Women a Year After DOGE Layoffs
Part 1 of a three-part series, FIRED: The DOGE Layoffs Hit Black Women Hard, a collaboration between MindSite News, Capital B, The 19th, and The Nation, edited by MindSite News. Photographs by Kuwilileni Hauwanga Darnese Foster remembers the day she learned she was fired from her federal government job. “I was off that Friday, which […]
