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Hidden Figures: Ethel Payne #BlackHERstoryMonth 4/28

1,159 views · Published 4 February 2018 · 10:03 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: Sensei Aishitemasu · 2018 · Entertainment

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Ethel Lois Payne (August 14, 1911 – May 28, 1991) was an African-American journalist. Known as the "First Lady of the Black Press", she was a columnist, lecturer, and freelance writer. She combined advocacy with journalism as she reported on the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s, and was known for asking questions others dared not ask. First published in The Chicago Defender in 1950, she worked for that paper through the 1970s, becoming Washington correspondent and editor. She became the first female African-American commentator employed by a national network when CBS hired her in 1972. In addition to her reporting of American domestic politics, she also covered international stories.

She began her journalism career rather unexpectedly while working as a hostess at an Army Special Services club in Japan, a position she had taken in 1948. She allowed a visiting reporter from the Chicago Defender to read her journal, which detailed her own experiences as well as those of African-American soldiers. Impressed, the reporter took the journal back to Chicago and soon Payne's observations were being used by the Defender, an African-American newspaper with a national readership, as the basis for front-page stories.

In the early 1950s, Payne moved back to Chicago to work full-time for the Defender. After working there for two years, she took over the paper's one-person bureau in Washington, D.C. In addition to national assignments, Payne was afforded the opportunity to cover stories overseas, becoming the first African-American woman to focus on international news coverage, and only one of three accredited African-Americans on the White House Press Corps.

During Payne's twenty-five year career with the Defender, she covered several key events in the Civil Rights Movement, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott and desegregation at the University of Alabama in 1956, as well as the 1963 March on Washington. Payne earned a reputation as an aggressive journalist who asked tough questions. She once asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he planned to ban segregation in interstate travel. The President's angry response that he refused to support special interests made headlines and helped push civil rights issues to the forefront of national debate. 

In 1972 she became the first African-American woman radio and television commentator on a national network, working on CBS's program Spectrum from 1972 to 1978, and after that with Matters of Opinion until 1982. On May 28, 1991, at the age 79, Payne died of a heart attack at her home in Washington, D.C.

#EthelPayne #HiddenFigures

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Links: 

Eye On the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press (Amazon):
https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Struggle-Ethel-Payne-First/dp/0062198866/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

'Black journalist Ethel Payne changed the national agenda with coverage of civil rights:'
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/black-journalist-ethel-payne-changed-national-agenda

'Review: The Reporter Ethel Payne in ‘Eye on the Struggle’
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/books/review-the-reporter-ethel-payne-in-eye-on-the-struggle.html

'Ethel Payne,‘first lady of the black press,’asked questions no one else would:'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ethel-paynefirst-lady-of-the-black-pressasked-questions-no-one-else-would/2011/08/02/gIQAJloFBJ_story.html?utm_term=.b8d1973f7fbb

'James McGrath Morris on Ethel Payne, 'Eye on the Struggle:'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-eye-on-the-struggle-ethel-payne-james-mcgrath-morris-20150219-story.html

'Ethel Payne, Ground-Breaking Black Female Journalist:'
https://americacomesalive.com/2015/02/04/ethel-payne-ground-breaking-black-female-journalist/

'Payne, Ethel Lois:'
http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1603900

'ETHEL L. PAYNE: “FIRST LADY OF THE BLACK PRESS:”
https://blackthen.com/ethel-l-payne-first-lady-of-the-black-press/

Ethel L. Payne:
http://blackhistorynow.com/ethel-l-payne/

Ethel L. Payne (Wikipedia):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_L._Payne

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