When the return of The Black Lens was announced in spring 2023 – this time as a nonprofit – a wide-ranging group of local families, regional organizations and businesses quickly sprung into action to make sure Spokane’s only Black newspaper had enough funding to begin its mission in February of 2024.

It immediately inspired No-Li Brewhouse co-owners John and Cindy Bryant to find ways they could help the publication return to their hometown. For them, it was a family lesson first inspired by John Bryant’s grandmother, who was a community activist for equity and equality whose limited resources never limited her ability to think big when it came to her core beliefs.

With the relaunch of The Black Lens just weeks away, No-Li Brewhouse pledged to donate $10,000 to the cause, with the hope of other local businesses stepping up to do the same. The Bryants’ wish is for The Black Lens to have another $50,000 in funding before its first new edition in more than two years is published the first weekend in February.

“This is important to us and our culture, our community,” John Bryant said. “This represents who we are, and we want to be involved in, and support, the Black community, the Black voice, the foundation and all people of our community.”

The Black Lens will operate with Spokane attorney and former congressional candidate Natasha Hill as interim editor. She said the paper will feature original reporting and advocacy.

“Stories will often include a call to action, while others will just be highlighting the community,” she said in an earlier story.

Though this donation represents one of the largest in the company’s history, giving back is nothing new to the family-owned business. The No-Li team has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in philanthropy over the past several years.

“We have been raising money and embracing nonprofit community movements since our inception in 2012,” John Bryant said.

The paper is coming back Feb. 4, after a two-year hiatus. It will be distributed for free in magazine racks across town and will be inserted into The Spokesman-Review.

The spirit of giving in the Bryant family has its roots in the Great Depression, when John Bryant’s grandmother, seeing her community struggling, sought the assistance of a first lady.

“She wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt; she said, ‘Our town is starving, and we need help’… everybody had shared, everybody had bartered, they were just out,” Bryant said. “Within a month, two large trucks of fresh produce and meat and peanut butter and cheese came rolling into this little small town in Mossyrock, Washington.”

His grandmother never forgot the act of kindness.

“It created this spirit that my grandma never forgot of the power of engaging, asking for help when you need it, but giving help when you can,” he said – a philosophy that she passed on to her children, and they to theirs.

The brewhouse didn’t stop with their donation – they’re also challenging other local businesses to match it.

“We’re going to look for $10,000 community matches to really get behind this program,” John Bryant said.

No-Li’s donation to the Black Lens comes with Martin Luther King Jr. Day just around the corner, a holiday that holds a special importance to John Bryant.

“My grandmother, her two favorite people were Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. King,” he said. “No-Li built really a lot of characteristics of those two people that influenced my grandmother, who influenced my father and my mother, who influenced us.”

For John Bryant, Martin Luther King Jr. Day isn’t about fireworks, or materialism, or getting a three-day weekend – “this holiday is different because Dr. King was about serving.”

“I think as a society, if we all served a little bit, volunteered a little bit, we could mend a lot of the pain and the anguish that we have today,” he said.

With No-Li’s donation, they hope to continue the legacy of Black Lens founder Sandy Williams and to help give a voice to Spokane’s Black community, “but it’s also for all people, and I think it’s important that this publication can bring everyone together,” John Bryant said.

Williams died in a plane crash in September 2022 along with her partner, Patricia Hicks.

Organizers said the reborn Black Lens news organization would continue the original mission of Williams’ publication.

It also expands upon it by adding substantially increased print circulation for The Black Lens, a constantly updated website with an emphasis on mobile and email capabilities, and a new syndication system that will provide the organization’s news content and columns to other news organizations across the Pacific Northwest and nation at no charge.

The Black Lens will mentor young journalists at the high school and collegiate levels, and host annual public events and forums across the region.

“Sandy was an amazing person. And The Black Lens did so much for Spokane,” Hill said earlier. “And since it has been gone, we have a lot of people in our community, especially the Black community, who are doing some amazing things but not always getting spotlighted.”

Like many historically Black newspapers in America, The Black Lens will describe the community as it exists and provide and propose solutions to Spokane’s problems.