African American Foreign Correspondents

Though African Americans have served as foreign reporters for almost two centuries, their work remains virtually unstudied. In this seminal volume, Jinx Coleman Broussard traces the history of black participation in international newsgathering. Beginning in the mid-1800s with Frederick Douglass and Mary Ann Shadd Cary -- the first black woman to edit a North American newspaper -- African American Foreign Correspondents highlights the remarkable individuals and publications that brought an often-overlooked black perspective to world reporting. Broussard focuses on correspondents from 1840 to the present, including reporters such as William Worthy Jr., who helped transform the role of modern foreign correspondence by gaining the right for journalists to report from anywhere in the world unimpeded; Leon Dash, a professor of journalism and African American studies at the University of Illinois, who reported from Africa for the Washington Post in the 1970s and 1980s; and Howard French, a professor in Columbia University's journalism school and a globetrotting foreign correspondent. African American Foreign Correspondents provides insight into how and why African Americans reported the experiences of blacks worldwide. In many ways, black correspondents upheld a tradition of filing objective stories on world events, yet some African American journalists in the mainstream media, like their predecessors in the black press, had a different mission and perspective. They adhered primarily to a civil rights agenda, grounded in advocacy, protest, and pride. Accordingly, some of these correspondents -- not all of them professional journalists -- worked to spur social reform in the United States and force policy changes that would eliminate oppression globally. Giving visibility and voice to the marginalized, correspondents championed an image of people of color that combatted the negative and racially construed stereotypes common in the American media. By examining how and why blacks reported information and perspectives from abroad, African American Foreign Correspondents contributes to a broader conversation about navigating racial, societal, and global problems, many of which we continue to contend with today.

Keith B. Richburg was an experienced and respected reporter who had paid his dues covering urban neighborhoods in Washington D.C., and won praise for his coverage of Southeast Asia. But nothing prepared him for the personal odyssey that he would embark upon when he was assigned to cover Africa. In this powerful book, Richburg takes the reader on an extraordinary journey that sweeps from Somalia to Rwanda to Zaire and finally to South Africa. He shows how he came to terms with the divide within himself: between his African racial heritage and his American cultural identity. Are these really my people? Am I truly an African-American? The answer, Richburg finds, after much soul-searching, is that no, he is not an African, but an American first and foremost. To those who romanticize Mother Africa as a black Valhalla, where blacks can walk with dignity and pride, he regrets that this is not the reality. He has been there and witnessed the killings, the repression, the false promises, and the horror. "Thank God my nameless ancestor, brought across the ocean in chains and leg irons, made it out alive," he concludes. "Thank God I am an American."

During the 1920s and 1930s, Fay M. Jackson broke traditional barriers by serving as the first African American foreign correspondent for the Associated Negro Press (ANP). Jackson was the only African American female reporter of the ANP who covered the coronation of King George VI in 1937 and used the opportunity to report on the sociopolitical affairs of Blacks in Europe while specifically underscoring the Italio-Ethiopian conflict. While in Europe, Jackson set out to meet with various political figures and activists of color to emphasize the parallel treatment between Blacks in the U.S and other communities of color outside the U.S. Furthermore, Jackson started Flash the first Black intellectual news weekly magazine on the west coast, in 1928,and became a political news editor for the California Eagle in 1931. She served as the first African American female Hollywood correspondent with accreditation from the Motion Pictures Directors Association. Jackson used her positions to re-contextualize the identity of Black America by advocating for progressive reform inside and outside Hollywood. The following research will create a sociopolitical narrative of Jackson's career by analyzing the political and social statements made by her as a publisher, editor, and correspondent. Little research has been done on the role of African American female journalists in American history. Therefore, Jackson's importance is further accentuated by the fact that she was one of few women who forged a way into the Black Press. Jackson is a voice that has gone virtually unnoticed with scant acknowledgments of her career and contributions to the Black experience in America. This thesis will be the first scholarly work to highlight Jackson's efforts in developing the Black identity by participating in the formulation and expression of the Black political consciousness during the 1920s and 30s.

This book traces the history of African Americans who have served as foreign correspondents from the mid-1800s to the present.

The history of African Americans in the news media is a relatively recent story of firsts. Consider Dorothy Gilliam, who in 1961 became the first black woman reporter hired by The Washington Post, or Bob Herbert, who in 1993 became the first black columnist at The New York Times, or even Mark Whitaker, who in 1998 became the first black editor of one of America's three major newsweeklies, Newsweek. These are just a few of the trailblazers who overcame obstacles to rise to the highest echelons of the media world. Prior to the 1960s, however, African Americans working for the predominantly white media were few and far between. After the subsiding of the dramatic civil rights demonstrations that shook most of America out of complacent acceptance of the status quo, the hiring of African-American news people slowed for a time before accelerating in the 1970, gaining real speed in the 1980s and 1990s. By the dawning of the new millennium, African Americans in the news media had achieved a sort of critical mass. This two-volume biographical encyclopedia chronicles the success stories and considerable strides made by over 240 African American media figures from newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. The most influential and often groundbreaking reporters, columnists, editors, publishers, broadcasters, and even talk show hosts are all included here. Each in-depth biography discusses the individual's achievements and struggles along with more personal and career information. Numerous primary source documents-including newspaper and magazine articles, columns, and radio and television transcripts-give readers first-hand accounts from the newsrooms. Unlike other reference workscurrently available, this timely encyclopedia emphasizes those African Americans who are currently working in the news media. Among the featured: BLBob Herbert, syndicated columnist, The New York Times BLRichard D. Parsons, CEO, Time Warner BLLeonard Pitts, syndicated columnist, Tribune Media Services BLClarence Page, syndicated columnist, Chicago Tribune BLStanley Crouch, columnist, New York Daily News BLDerrick Johnson, columnist, The Boston Globe BLEd Bradley, correspondent, 60 Minutes on CBS BLLester Holt, anchor and show host, MSNBC BLCharlayne Hunter-Gault, foreign correspondent, NPR BLGwen Ifill, correspondent and moderator, PBS BLRobert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television BLByron Pitts, national correspondent, CBS news BLAlfred Edmond, editor-in-chief, Black Enterprise Magazine BLMark Whitaker, editor, Newsweek BLLinda Johnson-Rice, publisher, Johnson Publishing Company BLKevin Blackistone, sports columnist, The Dallas Morning News BLRobin Roberts, sportscaster, anchor, ABC and ESPN BLOprah Winfrey, show host, ABC actress, producer, magazine publisher BLMichelle Norris, host of All Things Considered on NPR. A timeline, comprehensive introduction, numerous photos, and an extensive bibliography of print and electronic sources for further reading are included, making this encyclopedia a valuable reference for teachers and students interested in understanding the impact and significance of African Americans in the news media today.

Marcus Mabry examines Black success in America, working within and against a world of white privilege. Born and raised in an all-Black enclave in suburban New Jersey, Marcus Mabry suddenly found himself thrust into the white world at age fourteen when he won an academic scholarship to one of the nation's most prestigious prep schools. In examining the price of Black success in America, Mabry recalls what it was like being young, Black, and talented, searching for his own identity, as he teetered uncertainly between two universes: the despairing, impoverished tightly knit black community of his childhood and the white world of privilege and promise that beckoned. Exploring what it means to be “young, Black, and talented” in America—and the high cost of teetering precariously between two separate worlds—Mabry examines the twentysomething experience, and chronicles the rise of a young Black man—from his ghetto childhood through his Stanford education to his emergence as one of Newsweek's bright, young stars.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting in African countries by American journalists has been a latecomer within the award category for international coverage. It took close to two decades after the establishment of the awards that reporting about the Italian-Ethiopian crisis was declared prize-worthy by the Pulitzer Prize jurors. During World War II, prizes were given for the coverage of the North African battlefields. Since the 1960s, inner-African conflicts, like unrest in the Congo, impressed the jurors, as well as writings on the Apartheid system in South Africa. This book contains a selection of the Pulitzer Prize-winning articles and photographs by news journalists in Africa. (Series: Pulitzer Prize Panorama - Vol. 8)

Bookended by remarks from African American diplomats Walter C. Carrington and Charles Stith, the essays in this volume use close readings of speeches, letters, historical archives, diaries, memoirs of policymakers, and newly available FBI files to confront much-neglected questions related to race and foreign relations in the United States. Why, for instance, did African Americans profess loyalty and support for the diplomatic initiatives of a nation that undermined their social, political, and economic well-being through racist policies and cultural practices? Other contributions explore African Americans' history in the diplomatic and consular services and the influential roles of cultural ambassadors like Joe Louis and Louis Armstrong. The volume concludes with an analysis of the effects on race and foreign policy in the administration of Barack Obama. Groundbreaking and critical, African Americans in U.S. Foreign Policy expands on the scope and themes of recent collections to offer the most up-to-date scholarship to students in a range of disciplines, including U.S. and African American history, Africana studies, political science, and American studies.

The history of African Americans in the news media is a relatively recent story of firsts. Consider Dorothy Gilliam, who in 1961 became the first black woman reporter hired by The Washington Post, or Bob Herbert, who in 1993 became the first black columnist at The New York Times, or even Mark Whitaker, who in 1998 became the first black editor of one of America's three major newsweeklies, Newsweek. These are just a few of the trailblazers who overcame obstacles to rise to the highest echelons of the media world. Prior to the 1960s, however, African Americans working for the predominantly white media were few and far between. After the subsiding of the dramatic civil rights demonstrations that shook most of America out of complacent acceptance of the status quo, the hiring of African-American news people slowed for a time before accelerating in the 1970, gaining real speed in the 1980s and 1990s. By the dawning of the new millennium, African Americans in the news media had achieved a sort of critical mass. This two-volume biographical encyclopedia chronicles the success stories and considerable strides made by over 240 African American media figures from newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. The most influential and often groundbreaking reporters, columnists, editors, publishers, broadcasters, and even talk show hosts are all included here. Each in-depth biography discusses the individual's achievements and struggles along with more personal and career information. Numerous primary source documents-including newspaper and magazine articles, columns, and radio and television transcripts-give readers first-hand accounts from the newsrooms. Unlike other reference workscurrently available, this timely encyclopedia emphasizes those African Americans who are currently working in the news media. Among the featured: BLBob Herbert, syndicated columnist, The New York Times BLRichard D. Parsons, CEO, Time Warner BLLeonard Pitts, syndicated columnist, Tribune Media Services BLClarence Page, syndicated columnist, Chicago Tribune BLStanley Crouch, columnist, New York Daily News BLDerrick Johnson, columnist, The Boston Globe BLEd Bradley, correspondent, 60 Minutes on CBS BLLester Holt, anchor and show host, MSNBC BLCharlayne Hunter-Gault, foreign correspondent, NPR BLGwen Ifill, correspondent and moderator, PBS BLRobert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television BLByron Pitts, national correspondent, CBS news BLAlfred Edmond, editor-in-chief, Black Enterprise Magazine BLMark Whitaker, editor, Newsweek BLLinda Johnson-Rice, publisher, Johnson Publishing Company BLKevin Blackistone, sports columnist, The Dallas Morning News BLRobin Roberts, sportscaster, anchor, ABC and ESPN BLOprah Winfrey, show host, ABC actress, producer, magazine publisher BLMichelle Norris, host of All Things Considered on NPR. A timeline, comprehensive introduction, numerous photos, and an extensive bibliography of print and electronic sources for further reading are included, making this encyclopedia a valuable reference for teachers and students interested in understanding the impact and significance of African Americans in the news media today.

How did the first United States foreign correspondents help shape an American common sense about the rest of the world? This new study is the first to address this key question, examining the images of foreign countries that emerge from the first formally organized American foreign correspondence. Its focus is on the discourses of the world constructed in mid-19th-century correspondence, which provided American newspaper readers with their first cohesive view of the world outside its borders. By emphasizing the emergence of foreign correspondence across its first two decades (1838-1859), and by comparing it to images in editorial and congressional debates of the time, Giovanna Dell'Orto's analysis addresses the pivotal question of what meanings were ascribed to foreign cultures during this key time. Giving Meanings to the World also establishes for the first time in scholarly literature the early history of the content of foreign news and editorials in American newspapers while also exploring alternative constructions of foreign cultures in the correspondence for an African-American newspaper and by women writers. Unique in both subject matter and approach, this work gathers together and puts into perspective an array of information and discussion about how America viewed other nations in the early days of foreign correspondence.