Wendi C. Thomas is an investigative journalist and the founder of MLK50, a nonprofit digital newsroom with the goal of reporting on economic justice.

Education

Thomas graduated from Butler University with a degree in journalism in 1993.

Career

Thomas worked for the Commercial Appeal as a columnist from 2003 to 2014. In 2016, she was selected for the 2016 Class of the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. In 2017, Thomas founded MLK50: Justice Through Journalism to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the

assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7 ...

In 2020, Thomas won the Selden Ring Award and the

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was estab ...

for local reporting for her reporting on predatory

health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

practices in Memphis.

Lawsuits

Wendi C. Thomas was involved in a 2018 federal police surveillance trial, where the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

of Tennessee sued Memphis Police Department for violating a 1978 decree preventing them from surveilling on citizens for political purposes. A white police officer in the trial admitted to posing as a person of color on Facebook and following Black Lives Matter related groups and people to get intel on the movement, also admitting that Thomas was one of the people he followed. In 2020, Thomas sued the city of Memphis for not including her in the city's media advisory list. Her lawyer claimed that it was unconstitutional for her to not be included and that they didn't include her because they " id notlike the content of her reporting".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Wendi C. American women journalists Butler University alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Gerald Loeb Award winners for Local 21st-century American women