Black History Month: Ethel Payne
Dubbed the “First Lady of the Black Press” Chicago native Ethel Payne used her immense writing ability to report the truth about racial disparities in the United States and the experiences of Blacks abroad. Whether covering the Black experience overseas in the Vietnam War, reporting from Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, or covering the Nigerian Civil War, Ethel Payne made it her priority to shine a light on overlooked and unseen issues in the world, particularly those facing the African American community.
Getting her writing foundation under the tutelage of Margaret Dixon, former teacher of Ernest Hemingway, at Lindblom Technical High School, Payne also helped her mother to make ends meet, as her father, a Pullman porter, had passed at the beginning of high school. She was determined though, and studied English and history at community college, while writing short fiction and volunteering with both the NAACP and her church.
Her political activities (Payne helped organize the 1941 March on Washington, which was called off due to the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Committee) and her lifelong experiences as a Black woman living in America gave her scope and subjects for her writing. She moved to Tokyo in 1948 to coordinate activities for African American troops with the U.S. Army Special Services Club and met Alex Wilson, a reporter for the Chicago Defender, a leading Black newspaper in the U.S. When she returned to Chicago after three years, she too became a reporter for The Chicago Defender and was able to cover causes close to her heart, such as the hardships faced by Black orphans, while creating social change as the number of adoptions of African American orphans increased.
Ethel Payne was also a White House correspondent during the Eisenhower administration, and although snubbed by him because of her inquiries about his position on segregation in interstate travel, years later Lyndon B. Johnson invited her to the Oval Office to witness the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Payne also became the first Black woman to be a commentator from a national network, CBS, from 1972 to 1982.
Ethel Payne died in 1991, at almost 80 years old. The National Association of Black Journalists gave everlasting recognition to her legacy through the creation of the Ethel Payne Fellowship, which provides support to African Americans reporting in Africa.
