Why We Built Kin+
Black America doesn’t need another content page. We need media we own, a newsroom we trust, and a place where our people can come home.
Kin Nation,
Let me tell you plainly: I did not build Kin+ because the internet needed another Black news page.
We have plenty of pages.
Pages that repost our pain. Pages that chase outrage. Pages that turn Black stories into clicks, views, and advertising dollars—then move on when the algorithm gets bored.
Kin+ was built because Black people deserve something deeper than content.
We deserve an institution.
I have spent more than fifteen years working in independent media. I have seen what happens when our stories are ignored, distorted, softened, or told by people who do not understand us. I have also seen what happens when Black-owned media lacks the money, infrastructure, and community support necessary to survive.
That is the part folks do not always want to talk about.
Everybody says Black media matters. But “matter” does not pay reporters, send people into the field, purchase equipment, fight public-records battles, maintain technology, or keep the lights on.
Applause is nice. Ownership is better.
The newsroom went quiet. The decisions did not.
Black Columbus once had its own press institutions.
The Columbus Call & Post reported on this city from 1962 to 1995. The Columbus Post carried that responsibility from 1995 to 2015.
Then the newsroom went quiet.
But City Council kept voting.
The Statehouse kept passing laws.
Police cases kept happening. School boards kept making decisions. Eviction courts kept moving. Public money kept changing hands. Institutions kept deciding what Black neighborhoods would receive, what we would lose, and how long we would be expected to wait.
The decisions never stopped.
What disappeared was the Black newsroom consistently watching those decisions, connecting the dots, and reporting what they meant for us.
That gap is unacceptable.
Kin+ is rooted in Black Columbus, but our vision reaches across Black America. Because whether the story is unfolding in Columbus, Tulsa, Atlanta, Jackson, Chicago, or Washington, the fundamental questions remain the same:
Who is getting paid?
Who is getting played?
Who is building?
And who is being forced to pay the cost?
This is bigger than reporting the news
Kin+ is the trust engine of Kin Worldwide.
That means we are not simply trying to tell you what happened. We are building the infrastructure our people need to understand power, protect our communities, support Black businesses, make informed decisions, and own more of our future.
We are going to follow the money.
We are going to read the legislation.
We are going to name the people and institutions making the decisions.
We are going to celebrate Black people who are building—and hold accountable those who are blocking the way.
And we are not going to reduce Black life to crime, trauma, elections, and celebrity foolishness. Black life is bigger than what happened to us. Our journalism must also document what we are creating.
I am not interested in building a page that goes viral today and disappears tomorrow.
I am building an institution that can outlive me.
Welcome to The Cookout
The Cookout is where Kin+ comes directly to you.
We have been building through Substack since around 2021 and 2022. After our former website was hacked, I used Substack to help rebuild UnBossed Columbus and the UnBossed 614 Streaming Network. This platform gave us a way to reconnect with our people and keep moving when losing our website could have ended the whole operation.
I have not forgotten that.
But I also learned an important lesson: a platform can help carry the work, but it cannot own the mission.
That is why The Cookout will serve as the newsletter and community table for Kin+. It is where Kin Daily lands in your inbox, where I can speak directly to Kin Nation, and where we can gather without waiting for an algorithm to decide whether our own people should hear from us.
The Cookout is the front porch.
Kin+ is the house.
And Kin Nation is the family coming through the door.
Independence has a price
Let’s have some grown-folks conversation.
Independent Black media is not free to operate.
If we want journalism that does not answer to political parties, corporate advertisers, wealthy gatekeepers, or whoever happens to be writing the biggest check, then the people who believe in the work must help finance the work.
That is what KinFam is for.
KinFam is not a tip jar. It is the paid community helping keep this newsroom Black-owned, independent, and accountable to the people it was built to serve.
Your membership does not purchase favorable coverage. It does not buy silence. It does not put anybody above accountability.
It helps ensure that Kin+ can keep showing up, asking questions, pulling records, producing videos, explaining what power is doing, and telling the stories other newsrooms overlook.
The receipts are free to read.
The newsroom is not free to run.
What I am asking from you
If you are reading this for free, you are part of Kin Nation—and you belong here.
Read the stories. Share them with your people. Bring the information into the group chat, the barbershop, the church basement, the boardroom, and the family gathering. Talk back. Send us receipts. Help us build the habit of staying informed through media created for us.
And when you are ready to move from reading the work to helping sustain it, become KinFam.
Because Black America does not simply need a voice.
We need to own the microphone.
We need to own the studio.
We need to own the newsroom, the technology, the distribution, and the relationship with our people.
That is why we built Kin+.
Pull up a chair, Kin Nation.
The Cookout is open.
Welcome home.
— DaVante’ Goins
Founder & CEO, Kin Worldwide
Founder, Kin+