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Former Memphis Anchorwoman Dee Griffin opens up about abuse and recovery

NEW TRI-STATE DEFENDER — he billing for the Sistahs Soiree Brunch offered advance notice: “…be ready for some candid conversations.” With the Memphis Botanical Garden as the setting (Aug. 10), the guest speaker – Augusta (Ga.) news anchor Dee Griffin, a former news anchor in Memphis – recounted her journey from planning a dream wedding through marital abuse to recovering and becoming an advocate to help “save the lives of women, and men, affected by domestic violence.”

Published

6 years ago

September 4, 2019

Oakland Post

Dee Griffin with her eight-year-old son, Pierce Isiah Griffin. (Courtesy photo)

By Dr. Sybil C. Mitchell

The billing for the Sistahs Soiree Brunch offered advance notice: “…be ready for some candid conversations.”

With the Memphis Botanical Garden as the setting (Aug. 10), the guest speaker – Augusta (Ga.) news anchor Dee Griffin, a former news anchor in Memphis – recounted her journey from planning a dream wedding through marital abuse to recovering and becoming an advocate to help “save the lives of women, and men, affected by domestic violence.”

For Griffin, the first major sign that something might be amiss with her happily-ever-after plans happened the night before her wedding day.

“He got angry with me because I was late, but I was waiting on a surprise I had ordered for him,” she said. “He had never yelled at me before. I wanted to call off the wedding, but my family and friends convinced me that it was only pre-wedding jitters and a case of cold feet. And so, I brushed it off.”

And brushed it off, she did. All was forgiven, and the fairytale wedding in her hometown of Augusta, Ga. was everything Griffin had dreamed. She soon left Memphis and relocated to Boston, Mass., where her husband was a rising star in the education sector.

Fighting through the progressively escalating tell-tale signs of abuse, Griffin would have her dream, despite the cracks that began to show the imperfections in her relationship. She would hold fast to the illusion of her picture-perfect marriage to the man of her dreams for dear life.

Almost immediately, Griffin was pregnant with their first child. When she was three months pregnant, the mounting aggression could no longer be ignored.

“He got in my face and was yelling at me,” she said. “And he called me the n-word.”

But the storm wasn’t over yet.

“That wasn’t the end. He was so angry. He started walking toward me. I was thinking, ‘Is he going to hit me?’ So I left. I just drove around for a while. Finally, I decided to get a room at the Marriott hotel. I came home the next day. He chastised and scolded me, and then it was over.”

At seven months pregnant, Griffin says her husband got angry and pushed her.

“There was this closet where I would run and hide,” she said. “I called my cousin because I knew it was going to get worse. And it did. After I had my baby, my husband attacked me, hitting and kicking me. He was arrested that time.”

Griffin did what statistics indicate that other victims do.

“I fought for my marriage. I didn’t consider myself an abuse victim. I felt that we could make it work with some counseling, but he wasn’t interested in that.”

When the baby was five weeks old, Griffin knew she had no other option but to flee. Leaving would save her life. Heartbroken and ashamed, she called her mother, Helen Griffin. Both her mother and sister were on the road within hours to bring Griffin and little Pierce Isiah back home. (“Isiah” was the name of Griffin’s grandfather and great grandfather.)

Griffin was despondent and humiliated. Her mother had not yet apprised her own husband of the situation. When they called him on the way back, the phone was handed to Griffin. She started to tell her father the details and the dam of emotions broke. She was weeping and couldn’t speak of it so her sister took the phone and told their father about it.

Her father, retired Sergeant Major Albert Griffin Jr., who served in the 24th Infantry of the Buffalo Soldiers, fought in the Korean conflict and in Vietnam, simply told her, “Bring my grandson home.”

Now, the former news broadcaster at the top of her game is a single mother who lost everything – her home in Memphis, her money, her position – all in the name of love. She said in a prior interview how she slept on the floor of her mother’s house for fear that her husband would come shoot up the house.

Like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from, Griffin’s trauma nearly sent her over the edge.

Her husband filed for divorce, and in a final, major hit, he terminated his parental rights, disavowing any ownership of his ex-wife or their son.

“After his parental rights were terminated, I asked my father if I could give Pierce his last name,” Griffin recalled. “He said, ‘I would be honored.’”

With no spousal support and no child support, Griffin also discovered that her ex-husband had been cheating on her since before their marriage with a Memphis woman. It was just all too much for her.

Even with her Christian upbringing, she considered suicide.

“God gave me Pierce so I could keep going,” she said. “I thought about committing suicide, but I had to keep going for him. My father taught him to salute. So, every time we left the house, he would salute my father. When he was four, my father passed away. I have a photo of Pierce saluting him in the casket. I just lost it.

“My father said, ‘I walked you down the aisle to a monster,’ and that just broke him down,” Griffin said. “He never got over that. It took him out.”

It’s been four years since little Pierce saluted his grandfather for the last time. He’s eight now, and spends a lot of time at the Augusta television station where his mom works.

“When he comes to the station, the first thing he does is go looking for the meteorologist, George Myers,” said Griffin. “George is a father figure to him, and I’m just so grateful. I lost everything, but my son and I have everything we need.”

Before Griffin’s father died, he gave her a solemn and weighty charge: “Use your words. Tell your story.” He gave her the courage to move beyond the shame and embarrassment of her abuse and tell her story.

Whether it’s a prayer luncheon in front of hundreds of women, or to one woman in a chance meeting at a grocery store, Griffin encourages women to find their own voice in abusive situations.

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone, but I must tell my story. I did not choose this mission. The mission chose me. I am working on a book about my experiences and the lessons I have learned. I hope it will help someone else.”

This article originally appeared in the New Tri-State Defender

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Fighting to Keep Blackness

BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

Published

1 week ago

March 7, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum

Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”

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Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.

On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.

All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.

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Trump Moves to Dismantle Education Department

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The Trump administration is preparing to issue an executive order directing newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. While the president lacks the authority to unilaterally shut down the agency—requiring congressional approval—McMahon has been tasked with taking “all necessary steps” to reduce its role “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The administration justifies the move by claiming the department has spent over $1 trillion since its 1979 founding without improving student achievement. However, data from The Nation’s Report Card shows math scores have improved significantly since the 1990s, though reading levels have remained stagnant. The pandemic further widened achievement gaps, leaving many students behind.

The Education Department provides about 10% of public-school funding, primarily targeting low-income students, rural districts, and children with disabilities. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 61% of voters oppose Trump’s efforts to abolish the agency, while just 34% support it. In Washington, D.C., where student proficiency rates remain low—22% in math and 34% in English—federal funding is crucial. Serenity Brooker, an elementary education major, warned that cutting the department would worsen conditions in underfunded schools.

“D.C. testing scores aren’t very high right now, so cutting the Department of Education isn’t going to help that at all,” she told Hilltop News. A report from the Education Trust found that low-income schools in D.C. receive $2,200 less per student than wealthier districts, leading to shortages in essential classroom materials. The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

The Office for Civil Rights also plays a key role in enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination. Moving it to the Department of Justice, as proposed in Project 2025, would make it harder for families to file complaints, leaving vulnerable students with fewer protections. Federal student aid programs, including Pell Grants and loan repayment plans, could face disruption if the department is dismantled. Experts warn this could worsen the student debt crisis, pushing more borrowers into default. “With funding cuts, they don’t have the materials they need, like books or things to help with math,” Brooker said. “It makes learning less fun for them.”