(1975-2005)

A review of milestones, achievements and events
in which black journalists affected the profession

Other notable moments

• WHUR-FM reporter Maurice Williams, 24, is first black journalist to die while on duty on U.S. soil when fatally shot as he stepped from a D.C. government building, amid a 39-hour siege by gunmen in 1978. (City Councilman Marion Barry also was injured.) The Howard University intern ran errands at NABJ’s founding meeting in 1975.

• Jim Vance and Sue Simmons in 1979 become weeknight co-anchors on WRC-TV (Washington), which he believes makes them first black co-anchors nationwide. In 1990, WCBS-TV says weekend anchors Dana Tyler and Reggie Harris were the only black co-anchors on any TV station in the country.

• In 1981, award-winning reporter Dorothy Reed of KGO-TV (San Francisco) ends up suspended for two weeks after wearing cornrows on air. After public protests and union intervention, station agrees to reinstate Reed, who charges racism is involved. She returns with modified cornrows, without colored beads interwoven into the braids’ ends. In 1971, Melba Tolliver, a correspondent for WABC-TV (New York), is forced from job after wearing an Afro while covering the wedding of Tricia Nixon, daughter of President Richard Nixon.

• Thomas H. Greer in 1982 becomes the first African American named top sports editor at a major metropolitan daily, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. In 2005, there are only three such editors at papers with 100,000-plus circulation: Leon Carter of the Daily News in New York, Garry Howard of The Journal-Sentinel in Milwaukee and Larry Starks of the Post-Dispatch in St. Louis.

• Betty Anne Williams, a 10-year veteran of The Associated Press, becomes the first black president of the Washington Press Club, a 600-member, predominately white female organization founded before women were permitted to join the National Press Club. The Rev. Jesse Jackson presided over Williams’ (1983) swearing in and other black politicos attended to show support. In 2004, the National Press Club inaugurated its first black president, Sheila Cherry, a writer for the Washington Times’ Insight magazine.

• Black journalists nationwide help create media push enabling Lenell Geter, wrongly convicted of robbing a Dallas-area fast-food restaurant in 1982, to win his freedom in 1984. After Geter’s attorney calls past NABJ President Les Payne, he calls Paula Walker at WFAA-TV (Dallas), who spreads word among local black colleagues, whose efforts lead prosecutors to drop charges.

• In 1984, the Cleveland Plain Dealer sets newsroom management standard for major newspapers with four black editors in significant roles – Robert McGruder (right), managing editor; Ernest Holsendolph, business editor; Thomas Greer, sports editor, and Gregory Moore, state editor. Greer later becomes the paper’s top editor and McGruder later named top editor of Detroit Free Press.

• A 1985 study by the Institute for Journalism Education found that some 40 percent of black journalists expect they eventually will leave journalism for another field – largely due to lack of opportunity in the newsroom. Many major newspapers are forced to question their relationships with black staffers while attempting to stem the exodus of talent to competing papers, IJE reports.

• 
  The Daily News 4 – Dave Hardy, Steve Duncan, Joan Shepard and Causewell Vaughan – wins landmark jury verdict against the New York newspaper on April 15, 1987. The jury found the paper had discriminated against the plaintiffs and found the panel retaliated against Duncan and Hardy when they complained. The four had challenged management regarding the dearth of black journalists being promoted into significant newsroom roles and beats. Two sides settled out of court – The Associated Press reported the four would share just over $3 million – before the jury got the chance to award damages.

• Journalist Callie Crossley, co-producer of critically acclaimed “Eyes on the Prize,” shares Academy Award nomination for the documentary on the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Crossley, formerly of WGBH-TV (Boston), took first place honors for documentaries in the 1987 NABJ awards competition, and served as NABJ’s vice president-broadcast from 1989-1991.

• In 1987, the widely promoted first revamped issue of The Washington Post Magazineis perceived as insensitive to African Americans. It features a New York rap singer accused of murder and a column by Richard Cohen sympathizing with city storeowners who turn away young black men because they “commit an inordinate amount of urban crime.” The Post report that “the magazine sparked a continuing protest movement and brought to the surface a more widespread dissatisfaction about the paper’s local coverage.” Both Publisher Donald Graham and Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee publicly apologize for the issue’s contents. A newly formed coalition of 47 community groups seeks balanced coverage of the black community.

• Former Memphis television reporter Myron Lowery in 1987 wins a federal lawsuit against WMC-TV. “An award-winning black television news journalist proved his charge of race bias by showing that the station’s management had a policy of discrimination,” the decision states. “He had been consistently denied promotion to weekday anchor positions over less qualified white reporters.” Lowery now serves on the Memphis City Council.

• CNN’s Bernard Shaw becomes first black journalist to moderate a presidential debate, between Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Michael Dukakis, Oct. 13, 1988, in Los Angeles. Shaw’s opening question to Dukakis, whether he would favor the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife, was a crucial campaign moment. It aimed to give Dukakis a chance to show emotion, but he answered in a wooden, lawyerly manner and remained the “Ice Man” to many voters. ABC’s Carole Simpson moderated a presidential debate in 1992, and Shaw and PBS’s Gwen Ifill did so for vice presidential debates in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Robert C. Maynard was a panelist for a presidential debate in 1976.

• Charlayne Hunter-Gault becomes the first black woman to anchor a national TV news broadcast, “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.” In 1988, 27 years after she was one of two young black students to integrate the University of Georgia, the heralded journalist delivered the commencement address at her alma mater.

• Assistant Managing Editor Gregory Moore in 1989 directs The Boston Globe’s coverage of the gruesome Charles Stuart murder case that, on the surface, initially fit popular stereotypes about urban crime: An inner city black man allegedly robbed a suburban white couple, killing the pregnant wife and seriously wounding the husband. After Stuart’s story was found to be a hoax, civic groups call for boycott of The Globe and The Boston Herald, saying the papers helped fuel the passionate racial polarization that followed the murder.

• Predominately black staff of producers, reporters and researchers at ABC News produces “Black in White America,” an hour-long, prime-time show on Aug. 29, 1989. It features segments on black residents living in a Chicago housing project, a successful black family’s discontent in San Diego and the Tuskegee airmen of World War II lore. Network News President Roone Arledge draws considerable press for, in effect, challenging the black journalists on staff to do the project. “At the time, it was astonishing,” Claudia Pryor, one of the producers, said later. “He got the very tiny black staff together to work on it and said, ‘If your point of view is so different, show me.’” The New York Times called “ABC’s ploy … condescending and perhaps a little exploitive.”

• Photo courtesy, The Cincinnati Post. Byron P. White

  In 1989, Byron P. White becomes first black journalist to assume command of a mainstream newspaper editorial board when named editorial page editor at the Cincinnati Post.

• Black journalists, including Chuck Stone, Acel Moore, Vanessa Williams and Garry Howard, and the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, help spark outcry after The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1990 publishes an editorial suggesting that poor black mothers be offered increased welfare benefits for using a new birth control product. A bitter newsroom rift help lead the paper to take the unusual step of publishing an apology on the editorial page.

• 1990 airing of “Heat Wave,” the Turner Network Television movie starring Blair Underwood, Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones in the 25th anniversary look at the Watts uprisings as seen through the eyes of Bob Richardson, the first black reporter/trainee at The Los Angeles Times.

• Johnathan Rodgers in 1990 becomes highest-ranking black executive in network television when named president of the five stations – in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami and Los Angeles – owned and operated by CBS.

• Notwithstanding daring coverage by CNN’s Bernard Shaw during the opening salvos of the Persian Gulf War in Jan. 1991, black reporters were decidedly not among those sent to the gulf by major U.S. news organizations. Some black journalists (Les Payne, Joe Ritchie, Kevin Merida and Jerry Gray) already directing national and foreign coverage at their papers helped do so for the war. And in at least one case, one black journalist got to experience the war as a fighter. Willard Shepard, a reporter at WJW-TV (Cleveland) and an Air Force reservist, piloted a fighter plane as a first lieutenant in many combat missions.

• In April 1992, USA Today tennis reporter Doug Smith tells the newspaper’s top sports editor he had two unnamed sources saying tennis legend Arthur Ashe, also his lifelong friend, had AIDS. Ashe would not confirm the story, so the paper chose not to run it – but Ashe goes public, feeling the secret would be revealed anyway. The paper is criticized for breaking the story, when in fact they printed no sooner than other media. Ashe dies several months later.

• The Trotter Group – a group for black columnists and named in honor of William Monroe Trotter, the early 20th century editor known for his outspoken support of Negro concerns – holds founding meeting at Harvard University in 1992. Les Payne, DeWayne Wickham and Derrick Jackson (right) organize meeting soon after learning of poor treatment of Haitian refugees at U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in hopes the Clinton administration might focus attention on black concerns. Eighteen columnists attend. The group’s purpose is three-fold: to provide a forum through which colleagues can discuss their craft, to offer mutual support, and to explore ways to increase the visibility and influence of black commentators. In 1996, Wickham publishes “Thinking Black: Some of the Nation’s Best Black Columnists Speak Their Minds.”

• Pearl Stewart, former reporter for United Press International and San Francisco Chronicle, in 1992 becomes first black woman to edit a U.S. daily metropolitan newspaper, at The Oakland Tribune (circ. 107,000), shortly after Robert C. Maynard sells the paper. “It’s kind of jolting that … I’m the first to hold a position such as this,” Stewart told Essence magazine.

• Sharon Farmer becomes the first black photojournalist to serve as chief White House photographer, one of the photo world’s most prestigious jobs, in 1993. After she serves two terms with the Clinton administration, another black photojournalist, Eric Draper, becomes chief photographer for the second Bush administration through today. A black White House photographer, Ricardo Thomas, served during the Ford administration, but he was not chief.

• NABJ in 1993 releases “Muted Voices: Frustration and Fear in the Newsroom,” a landmark, analytical report concluding that many black journalists operate in unfriendly and unsupportive newsrooms. “Much of in this survey is indicative of despair,” Dorothy Gilliam, then NABJ’s vice president for print, wrote after NABJ asked a random sample of 800 members from both print and broadcast to answer 50 questions. “Muted Voices” said 67 percent of black journalists said their newsroom managers were not committed to retaining and promoting them, and about a third said they feared discussing race issues would damage their chances for advancement. The report also offered several steps to help newsrooms create environments for black journalists to exercise their talents and be recognized for them.

• Nathan McCall’s “Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America” in 1994 lands on the New York Times’ best-seller list, a rarity at the time for nonfiction books by African Americans about black life. His is one of three autobiographies by black reporters at The Washington Post that draw much attention for detailing their experiences before and while at the paper. McCall chronicles his life from inner-city streets to prison to rehabilitation and his duality between his corporate and street peers. Jill Nelson authors “Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience” in 1993. The first black woman to write for The Post's prestigious Sunday magazine writes that instead of journalism heaven she found herself struggling to preserve her soul. And in “Laughing in the Dark: From Colored Girl to Woman of Color – A Journey from Prison to Power,” Patrice Gaines writes in 1994 about her own time in jail and pension for falling for hustlers and criminals before her transformation into a confident black woman, proud parent and award-winning professional.

• Leon Dash of The Washington Post shares 1995 Pulitzer Prize for a series about a District of Columbia woman and her dysfunctional family that included two teenage brothers convicted of murder. The Post logs more than 4,600 reader calls about the series. Many praised it, but others complain the paper, as its ombudsman notes, “perpetuated the notion the black people are a problem.”

• Jack White of Time becomes first black journalist with a regular column in a major weekly newsmagazine. His initial “Dividing Line” appears in Jan. 16, 1995, edition. It was about Newt Gingrich and titled, “Deal With the Devil.”

• The bitter Detroit newspaper strike begins in July 1995 at the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, pits many black journalists on opposite sides as reporters and staffers side with the Newspaper Guild, while managers, including then-Managing Editor Robert McGruder of the Free Press, side with the companies. Many black journalists leave for work elsewhere or in other professions, while others sign on with the companies. Management calls them replacement workers; the union derides them as “strikebreakers” or “scabs.”

• Black journalists seize new online opportunities. Barry Cooper, editor of the Orlando Sentinel’s electronic newspaper, in 1995 launches Black Voices, an online service devoted to African-American concerns. Neil Foote later directs Belo Interactive Inc., the Dallas-based owner of 24 Web sites, after helping develop one of the earliest online city guides at The Morning News; in 2000, he was named chief operating officer for Tom Joyner’s BlackAmericaWeb.com. In 2001, former newspaper columnist Richard Prince starts Richard Prince’s Journal-isms, a diversity-focused online column published three times a week by the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education; as the Poynter Institute-based daily Romenesko online column is must reading for those hungry for general media news, Journal-isms is the same for those focused on journalists of color. And, in 2003, ESPN.com, with Neal Scarbrough as its vice president and editor-in-chief, wins Online Journalism Award for General Excellence in Online Journalism, the Internet’s highest journalism honor.

• Anchor Stuart Scott joins ESPN’s “SportsCenter” in 1996 and becomes known for phrases such as “cool as the other side of the pillow” and “Boo-yah!” He leads emergence of black “personalities” in sports journalism, perhaps lone area on TV where African Americans well represented as commentators. Like Scott, Stephen A. Smith (ESPN analyst/reporter known for frank, boisterous commentary of the NBA and its players) and Michael Wilbon (columnist at The Washington Post and co-host of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption”) elicit strong opinions from viewers and readers. Also in mid-‘90s, ESPN correspondent David Aldridge helps shape Michael Jordan-era NBA coverage.

• Everett J. Mitchell becomes managing editor of the News Journal in Wilmington, Del., in mid-1997, furthering an unheard-of-oasis of black leadership at a mainstream daily newspaper. Curtis Riddle is president and publisher; Bennie Ivory is executive editor; Norman Lockman, a former managing editor there, is associate editor and an editorial board member; and Sam Martin is advertising director. “I know it won’t last, but it’s a precious feeling,” Lockman tells the NABJ Journal then.

• Award-winning columnist Patricia Smith resigns from The Boston Globe in 1998 after admitting that she fabricated people and quotes in four columns. The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and a published poet was confronted by Managing Editor Gregory Moore after a routine check by the paper found discrepancies in six of her columns. ASNE, at the paper’s request, rescinded the distinguished writing award the association had issued to Smith earlier that year. Meanwhile, the resignation sparks questions of a Globe double standard on race and gender concerning the retention of columnist Mike Barnicle, who is white, because of longstanding allegations of misquotes and fabrications in his work.

• Lorraine Branham, then the only black female editor of a daily newspaper with more than 50,000 circulation, leaves in Oct. 1999 after three years at the helm of the Tallahassee Democrat. Many in local community question whether the publisher, in accepting the resignation, had pandered to white readers concerned the paper had become too minority-focused under her leadership. Trade magazine Editor & Publisher puts Branham on its cover as part of lengthy article on her situation and the industry’s struggle with diversity.

• “The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords,” a 90-minute documentary about the pioneering men and women of the Black Press who gave voice to Black America, premiers on PBS stations on Feb. 9, 1999. Several black journalists from back in the Black Press’ heyday are interviewed for the film.

• Bob Herbert’s relentless and anguished op-ed columns about the “Tulia Madness” in The New York Times are largely credited with causing the Texas criminal justice system to right itself and grant pardons to 35 defendants convicted in the 1999 Tulia drug sting case. The defendants were rounded up in their predominately black West Texas neighborhood, arrested and convicted on drug charges fabricated by rogue and racist undercover cop Tom Coleman, with the acquiescence of prosecutors, politicians, and judges.

• Black journalists shine in Pulitzer Prize-winning series, “How Race is Lived in America.” Published by The New York Times in 2000, the series explored racial experiences and attitudes across America in the military, law enforcement, public schools, the workplace and other settings. Then-Deputy Managing Editor Gerald Boyd was a co-senior editor of the series, and black reporters Steven A. Holmes, Ginger Thompson and Dana Canedy contributed.

• Jay T. Harris, publisher of The Mercury News in San Jose and among the nation’s highest-ranking black newspaper executives, resigns in 2001 after citing differences with parent company Knight Ridder over profit margins and goals. “There are too few African-American publishers of daily newspapers, especially major daily newspapers, so to lose any of them is a problem,” then-NABJ President William W. Sutton Jr. says at the time.

• Vanguarde Media, publisher of urban magazines Savoy, Honey and Heart & Soul, files for bankruptcy in 2003, less than three years after acquiring and shutting down Emerge magazine to start up Savoy. About 70 full-time employees lose jobs, including many black journalists who stepped out on faith to pursue their dreams of magazine careers. Closures seen as tragic setbacks for black media ownership and diversity in the magazine industry overall.

• 
  Black journalists join a chorus of outrage after the acting president of Hampton University, a historically black institution, confiscates copies of the Hampton Script in Oct. 2003 after student editors do not publish an administration-backed letter on the homecoming edition’s front page. A faculty-student task force soon agrees on recommendations aimed at fostering a better campus environment for student journalists and protecting their press freedoms.

• CNN’s Alphonso Van Marsh, an Atlanta-based producer embedded with U.S. troops in Tikrit, Iraq, in Dec. 13, 2003, is the first journalist to deduce that “something very big has indeed happened, After daybreak and after intense persistence, the pieces of the puzzle came together,” Van Marsh says later. “I knew U.S. forces had ‘Number One.’ My talented CNN colleagues in Washington confirmed it and the next thing I knew, I’m live from the roof of the guardhouse reporting a CNN exclusive.”

• Essence Communications on Jan. 4, 2005, announces it’s selling controlling shares to Time Inc., meaning the venerable black women’s magazine, which turns 35 this year, is no longer black controlled, and the change sparks debate in the black community. Meanwhile, Johnson Publishing Co. is celebrating Ebony’s 60th anniversary in 2005 and Black Enterprise is turning 30 this year.

• 
  The Hilltop, Howard University’s 81-year-old student newspaper, goes from being a twice-a-week publication to a daily on Feb. 28, 2005, thus becoming the first campus daily at a historically black college or university.

• Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger.

  Three black journalists at Newsday combine as principal parties in a project looking back at the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2005. Dele Olojede, the paper’s former foreign editor who covered the genocide as a correspondent, conceived the project and wins the Pulitzer. Lonnie Isabel, assistant managing editor for foreign and national news, shepherded and edited it. And J. Conrad Williams, an award-winning staff photographer, captured the images alongside Olojede in Africa.