0:05

Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome

0:07

to Stephane. Never told your protection of I Heart Radio.

0:19

So Samantha, my question

0:21

for you is twofold today. Yes,

0:25

first, did you ever write for

0:28

a newspaper, perhaps

0:30

at your school? And secondly,

0:33

have you ever been featured

0:36

in a newspaper? So I

0:39

feel like these questions call out how boring

0:41

I am. I just want

0:43

to go ahead and put that out there because

0:45

my other is no, I have never written

0:48

for a newspaper. That's never been a

0:50

thing that I've ever wanted to do. Journalism

0:52

was not my thing. Surprisingly,

0:54

not surprisingly, I think that's true. So

0:57

no, I have not written. I think I

1:00

definitely did like the journal stuff. So when

1:02

we really had the yearly poetry stuff

1:04

or any of that, I did literaturely related

1:07

but not necessarily journalism related. So

1:10

thank you for calling out my boring one.

1:14

I did get featured a few times, the

1:17

one Asian girl in a small town gets your

1:19

feature. Before I even came

1:21

into the US, they had my picture

1:24

up. They had kind of a birth announcement except

1:26

for it's an adoption announcement, um,

1:28

and thether just got that clip as well. Anytime

1:31

the school does anything I would be featured. Turned

1:34

out, I think when I went on

1:36

my mission trip for the year,

1:38

I got featured. But yeah, those

1:40

are the times. Well,

1:44

actually, I feel like this happens to us a lot because

1:47

we are from very small towns, so we have similar

1:49

experiences in that way, because

1:51

I too was

1:53

often featured I won't say often,

1:56

but to me too

1:58

many times to be featured for pretty

2:00

boring things in the newspapers.

2:03

So I was in there once because I want an Easter egg

2:05

hunt, Oh

2:07

I want.

2:11

I was very very competitive, And then I

2:14

was featured for funny things like actually

2:17

it's not really funny, but it's funny to me. But

2:19

like when I got swine flu, they wrote an article

2:21

about it and they had my picture and I was like, I think

2:23

this is illegal, but anyway,

2:26

And then when I went to when I got a job

2:29

at a house to works, actually it

2:32

was during the recession and

2:35

people were having a lot of trouble finding jobs, and

2:37

they reached out to me and

2:40

they interviewed me for that,

2:42

and it was embarrassing because you

2:45

know, sometimes you really are just in the right

2:47

place at the right time. There's no advice you can really

2:49

give. Like my story

2:51

doesn't apply to most

2:53

people, if that makes sense. Like it was just kind

2:55

of a random event,

2:57

but they did a whole article on that, and that was embarrassed.

3:00

And then I wanted I wanted to award in high

3:02

school Star Student

3:04

Award and they did an interview with me and that My

3:06

friends still make fun of me with that interview because

3:08

I was so like embarrassed and frazzled. They

3:11

it was embarrassing. Well,

3:15

you know what I will say, My partner just

3:17

got a phone call from the

3:19

news broadcast. They're doing a whole

3:21

thing about the Wall Street butts stuff

3:24

and he's kind of gotten some Reddit fame.

3:27

Yeah, very

3:29

excited about this as

3:32

it should be. Yes,

3:36

yes, yeah,

3:38

yeah. My my mom's like the sweetest person.

3:40

And I was recently like mentioned like literally

3:42

in one short sentence in Atlanta magazine and she

3:44

subscribed to Atlanta Magazine. Well

3:47

you were thinking not too long ago you and Lauren

3:49

for Saver. Yeah yeah, but it was really

3:51

short and she subscribed like a year. But

3:53

it's very very sweet of her. And

3:56

I did work for the high school newspaper

3:58

a little bit and that was a fun that was a fun

4:00

project that I enjoyed. But

4:02

for today's classic, we wanted to talk

4:05

about somebody who's famous in this world

4:08

of press, the first Lady of the

4:10

Black Press, and we

4:12

hope that you enjoy this classic

4:14

episode.

4:18

Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you

4:21

from how stupp works dot com.

4:27

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

4:30

and I'm Caroline, and today

4:32

we're talking about the first Lady

4:34

of the Black Press, Ethel Payne. And

4:37

Caroline. This was personally

4:40

such a fascinating and also

4:43

at times horrifying

4:45

and disconcerting topic

4:47

to dig into, partially

4:49

because you and I were journalism

4:51

majors in college. That's how we

4:53

met, but not surprisingly,

4:56

considering all the factors we're going to talk about

4:59

in today's episode, we

5:01

never heard the name Ethel Payne in

5:03

any of our j school classes. Yeah,

5:06

because by and large, the

5:08

Black press as a whole was pretty

5:10

much invisible to white

5:12

readership. So it really ran parallel

5:15

to the white press, starting really

5:18

before the Civil War and petering

5:20

out in its strength and numbers

5:23

in the mid sixties and seventies.

5:25

And as you said, Caroline, it was invisible

5:29

to the white population back

5:31

then. But in a lot of ways too, that's

5:33

still the case today in terms

5:36

of the history and influence of

5:38

the Black press. I mean, it was so influential

5:41

in the civil rights

5:44

movement even happening, and also

5:46

in politically enfranchising

5:49

black communities around the nation and

5:51

really making them uh political

5:53

force. And Ethel Payne

5:56

is one of the shining

5:58

stars who comes in toward

6:00

the end of the Black press is sort

6:03

of industrial influence.

6:06

And when she died,

6:08

just to give you listeners an idea

6:10

of how influential she was,

6:13

but at the same time, how much

6:16

like racism in the United

6:18

States was so overwhelmingly

6:21

powerful in the sense of holding

6:24

people back as well. When she died,

6:26

a Washington Post editorial noted, had

6:29

Ethel Payne not been black, she

6:31

certainly would have been one of the most recognized

6:34

journalists in American society.

6:37

Oh, without a doubt. I mean this

6:39

this woman was

6:41

amazing. She is amazing, and her legacy

6:44

is incredible. But the thing is so

6:48

few people just in mainstream

6:50

society know about her

6:52

and the incredible influence she had

6:55

over the civil rights movement. Yeah, and

6:58

so in today's podcast, we're going to talk

7:00

about Ethel pain, of course, but

7:02

first we want to lay some groundwork to position

7:06

her within this history

7:08

of the black press in the United States

7:10

and focusing in on the women

7:13

who helped build that. And

7:16

as we're going through this, I

7:18

think it's important to keep in mind all of the social

7:20

movements that were happening and being

7:22

promoted within

7:25

these newspapers as

7:27

well. And I'm talking about suffrage

7:30

and when leading up to civil

7:32

rights and like all of all these political

7:34

issues that we're still talking about so

7:37

much even today with the Black Lives

7:39

Matter movement um, and

7:41

how these black presses were so

7:44

crucial for enfranchising

7:47

this people who were otherwise just cut

7:50

off in very literal

7:52

ways that we're going to talk about in

7:54

terms of the media, because

7:57

it's not like the white press

7:59

was going to be covered civil rights.

8:01

It really took people like Ethel Payne

8:03

pushing to get this stuff covered. So

8:06

let's start in seven. This is the

8:08

same year that slavery was abolished

8:10

in New York State, and you have two

8:13

freed black men, John Russworm

8:15

and Samuel Cornish who launched

8:18

the weekly paper, Freedom's

8:20

Journal, And this is the first black owned

8:22

and operated paper in the United States,

8:25

and it was started. The motivation behind it,

8:27

it was started to counter the racism

8:29

of the mainstream press, and Freedom's

8:32

Journal was the paper of record for

8:34

the three hundred thousand free

8:36

blacks living in the North and an advocated

8:38

abolition, anti lynching, voting

8:41

rights, political rights, and

8:43

the possibility of African repatriation

8:47

as well. So they're talking about all of these

8:50

issues, and it's

8:52

it's notable too that it's the paper of record

8:54

because for much

8:57

of obviously the you know, the nineteenth

8:59

and twentieth centuries, white

9:02

papers wouldn't even cover black

9:05

obituaries, right, Yeah, that's

9:07

that that's a huge issue that you see mentioned again

9:09

and again when you read about the black press

9:12

and and racism of this era,

9:14

that the bread and butter of newspapers

9:17

is essentially the ads,

9:19

and that includes obituaries. You have to pay to put

9:21

your obituary in the paper, and so you've

9:23

got the obituaries and classified

9:26

and just regular advertisements

9:28

of black families and and wedding

9:31

announcements and and all sorts of things like

9:33

that that white papers just wouldn't run.

9:35

And you have black newspapers who are not only

9:37

delivering the news to their communities,

9:39

but also serving as a way to deliver that

9:42

information as well. So jumping

9:44

back into our timeline if we hoped

9:46

to eight fifty two. The Fugitive

9:49

Slave Acts were past a couple

9:51

of years prior in the United States, and

9:54

with the Fugitive Slave Acts, it

9:57

became legal for freed

10:00

slaves or escaped slaves to be

10:03

arrested if they cross state lines

10:05

and sent without any kind

10:07

of questioning whatsoever back

10:10

to slave owners. So

10:13

in eighteen fifty two, Maryanne

10:16

Shad Carrie, who had emigrated

10:18

to Canada because of the Fugitive

10:20

Slave Acts, became a spokesperson

10:23

and editor of the pro immigration

10:25

Provincial Freeman, encouraging

10:27

other African Americans to high

10:30

tail it up north. Yeah,

10:32

and just briefly, Marianne Shad

10:34

Carry, if you're not familiar with her, is an incredible

10:37

person. She was the first woman at Howard

10:39

University Law School, but she couldn't

10:41

graduate because Washington d c. Did

10:43

not admit women to the bar, so

10:46

she had to go back ten years later

10:49

and get her degree at the age of sixty.

10:51

So just keep that in mind. She's an impressive

10:53

lady. She was also a lady ahead of her

10:55

time. I mean she argued for suffrage rights

10:58

under the Fourteenth Amendment and linked the importance

11:01

of women's suffrage to female

11:03

labor and entrepreneurship. Yeah,

11:05

I mean, and it's with issues

11:07

like that, the female labor and entrepreneurship

11:09

where we start to see

11:11

how white suffrage

11:14

and all of those conversations that we've had

11:16

around that in past episodes overlooks

11:20

issues relevant to women

11:23

of color, because labor is huge

11:25

for women of color and is a bigger issue

11:28

than it is for often wider, wealthier

11:31

women involved in the suffrage movement.

11:33

But when we get to eighteen sixty, at the start

11:35

of the Civil War, they were already

11:38

more than forty black owned newspapers

11:41

throughout the United States, and thirty

11:43

years later, in eighteen ninety suffrage

11:45

and abolition leader Josephine st. Pierre

11:47

Ruffin joins those ranks. She launches

11:50

the Women's Era, which is the first newspaper

11:53

published and written by and four

11:55

black women, and four years later in eighteen ninety

11:57

four, by the way, Ruffin

11:59

would go on to organize the Women's

12:01

Era Club, which was a group

12:03

specifically meant to advocate on behalf

12:05

of black women and to offer a little

12:08

broader context to the importance

12:10

of that this was happening

12:12

post suffrage movement

12:15

schism after black

12:17

men were enfranchised and given

12:20

the right to vote, but female

12:23

suffrage was not granted. So you have

12:25

that split where Susan

12:27

B. Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton start

12:30

to align themselves with

12:32

the more racist

12:34

supporters who are not so keen on integrating

12:37

women of color in their cause,

12:40

and then you have in

12:43

response, women like Josephine

12:45

St. Pierre Ruffin and others starting

12:47

the Women's the Black Women's Club movement,

12:51

organizing within their communities for community

12:53

uplift, basically saying, listen, if you if

12:56

you all, y'all are going to help us, We're gonna help ourselves.

12:58

We've been doing this. And someone else who

13:00

was highly instrumental in

13:03

that movement was Ida be

13:05

for Badass Wells, who was

13:07

best known as an anti

13:09

lynching journalist um In.

13:13

She kicked off her anti lynching

13:15

campaign after her paper, The Memphis

13:17

Free Speech closed following

13:20

a white mob vandalizing it in retaliation

13:23

for an article that she wrote denouncing

13:26

the lynching of three black

13:28

Memphis men, and she and

13:30

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin would

13:33

later come together through the

13:35

Women's Club movement. Because Ida B. Wells

13:37

would like go around and visit all these women's clubs

13:40

and help start them, and they would later

13:42

help form a larger

13:45

suffrage organization focus solely

13:47

on women of color. And in nineteen

13:49

o five, we get a newspaper that

13:51

we will revisit more

13:53

a little bit later, but we get the Chicago Defender,

13:56

and it really urged blacks in

13:58

the South to move of north as part

14:01

of what's called the Great Migration, and it was massively

14:04

influential in the Civil rights movement.

14:07

So then from nineteen twelve to nineteen

14:09

fifty one, a woman named CHARLOTTEA.

14:11

Bass serves as the publisher

14:14

of the California Eagle, which,

14:16

by the way, it was formerly known as

14:18

the Owl. And why would you change the name of a

14:20

newspaper from the Owl to a California

14:22

Eagle. I'm just saying the owl. That's cool, that's a

14:25

I guess I like owls. Well, owls. Owls

14:27

can turn their heads really far and

14:29

see things, which is great. And

14:32

but eagles are like, oh, we're I'm

14:35

an aggressive eagle. I've got my talent is going

14:37

to rip up this newspaper. See I don't,

14:39

it's not meshing in my brain. Um.

14:42

But back to Bass, she

14:44

used the paper as a platform

14:47

to denounce racist imagery in the media.

14:49

She particularly attacked

14:52

birth of a Nation. They also attacked

14:54

issues that sound very familiar today,

14:57

police brutality, discriminatory

14:59

high firing practices, housing discrimination,

15:02

even in the phase of

15:05

death threats, and FBI surveillance.

15:08

Yeah, I mean you could be talking about the

15:10

Black Lives Matter movement in that It's

15:12

absolutely still relevant. But fun

15:15

fact. Uh. In nineteen fifty two, so

15:17

the year after she stepped down as publisher

15:19

of The Eagle, she became the first African

15:21

American woman to run for national

15:23

office as the vice presidential candidate

15:26

on the Progressive Party ticket. And I also wanted

15:28

to mention how in black

15:32

paper the Chicago B was

15:34

started and it was on staffed

15:37

by women. I don't have any deeper information

15:39

on that, but I saw that and was

15:42

like, oh, we should mention that right

15:44

on Chicago B. Now one of our really smart

15:46

listeners is going to write in I predict

15:48

and tell us about the Chicago B. And I'm already

15:50

looking forward to reading that letter in our listener

15:53

mail segment in the future. Um And

15:55

just three years later, in the

15:57

Atlanta Daily World becomes the most

16:00

successful black paper in the country,

16:02

and it's the only one to publish daily

16:04

instead of weekly. Yeah, and the weekly

16:07

publication of most of these black newspapers

16:09

is going to come back into play

16:12

when we move into talking

16:14

about the Washington Press Corps.

16:16

But we want to re emphasize

16:18

to why these papers

16:21

mattered so much. I mean, we talked about

16:23

how the white press just completely disregarded

16:26

Black communities, obviously

16:28

perpetuating racist

16:31

myths about the black communities,

16:33

um even refusing again to publish obituaries.

16:36

But the thing was this, these were such crucial

16:39

resources sharing uplifting

16:42

stories about the black community

16:45

and emerging stars like Lena horne Um.

16:47

They also pointed readers to employers

16:49

who didn't discriminate. It engaged

16:52

these communities politically and expose

16:55

them to the writing of leading intellects

16:57

like Linkston, Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and Ernil

17:00

Hurston. And there's been

17:02

scholarship on how the Black press

17:05

in that way, speaking of like Links and Hughes,

17:07

Ernel Hurston laid

17:09

the groundwork for the Harlem Renaissance

17:12

as well. Yeah, And as

17:14

you might imagine, when you provide a community

17:16

with resources that they need and enjoy,

17:19

that can translate into big business for

17:21

the publishers who are running those papers. For

17:23

instance, Chicago Defenders publisher

17:26

Robert s Abbott became one of America's

17:28

first black millionaires. So

17:31

by the time we get to the

17:33

World War two era, the black

17:35

press is up

17:37

and running. It is powerful within

17:40

these black communities, but it's still

17:42

operating separately

17:44

from the quote unquote mainstream read

17:47

white media. And

17:49

that was the case even in

17:52

the heart of Washington. Yeah,

17:54

it's crazy, although not terribly

17:57

surprising to read about how

18:00

even in the

18:03

press core like of the White House Press Core

18:05

or the Capital Press Corps, black

18:08

reporters faced not

18:11

even discrimination, yes, discrimination, but

18:13

they just were barred from entry

18:15

and participation. Uh. The

18:17

white White House and congressional reporters

18:20

had very little interest in inviting

18:22

their black peers into the conversations

18:25

that were happening. I mean, they just weren't prioritizing

18:27

any type of civil rights issues whatsoever.

18:30

Um, the local black papers

18:33

were basically forced to rely on two

18:35

wire services, the Associated Negro Press

18:37

and the National Negro Publishers Association.

18:41

But for a lot of other information

18:44

they sort of had to get it almost second hand.

18:47

A lot of black papers would get their

18:49

news from white newspapers and

18:51

then spin it to then be relevant

18:54

to their audiences. Yeah. I

18:56

mean, because this is even before obviously

18:58

the civil it's really starts

19:01

picking up. I mean, but there were new

19:03

Deal policies happening that

19:05

they were otherwise uninformed

19:07

about, like any any political

19:10

development, imagine not having

19:13

access to that information. We have it so instantaneously

19:17

now thanks to Twitter. But

19:19

in this era, this entire community

19:22

was at least intentionally

19:25

like and strategically cut

19:28

off. And we should say too that this background

19:30

info is coming from a book reporting from

19:32

Washington, a History on the

19:34

Washington Press Corps. And

19:37

here's the thing. The White House

19:39

Correspondence Association, you know, that group

19:41

that throws those hilarious dinners

19:43

every year, um

19:45

it, and the presidential and congressional

19:48

press conferences it controlled remained

19:51

all white until nineteen

19:54

But that was only because FDRs

19:57

Press secretary need a black

19:59

policeman and in the groin, and because

20:02

of the fallout with that,

20:05

FDR was like, okay, okay, okay, we gotta

20:07

we gotta open things up a little bit. Let's let's

20:10

integrate. So it

20:12

was the press, not the politicians,

20:15

keeping members of the black press

20:17

out of presidential

20:20

and congressional press conferences,

20:23

and along those same lines, the National Press

20:25

Club only admitted white men. And

20:28

you know, we mentioned that a lot

20:30

of times black papers and news agencies

20:32

couldn't even get access to press

20:35

releases. They relied on other

20:37

news outlets to sort of hear what

20:39

was going on in Washington, but they

20:41

also relied on word

20:44

of mouth. Secretaries and custodians

20:46

around the Capitol would often share

20:48

what they overheard, even you know,

20:50

snag a document or two off of the mimeograph

20:53

machine that means copy machine,

20:55

you young people. Um

20:58

and journals would also consult the qute unquote

21:00

black cabinet of the highest ranking black

21:02

officials at the time, including Mary McLeod

21:05

Bethune and in nineteen forty

21:07

four, the Atlanta Daily worlds Henry

21:09

McAlpin becomes the first

21:11

black journalist to cover a White House

21:14

press conference, but he

21:16

was still denied admission

21:19

to the White House Correspondence Association.

21:22

It wasn't until nineteen fifty one that

21:24

Louis Laudier became the first black

21:27

reporter admitted to the Correspondence

21:29

Association, and ps

21:32

that organization remains overwhelmingly

21:34

white, as only

21:37

seven of the fifty three regular correspondents

21:40

were journalists of color. The Washington Post

21:43

reported, Yeah, well, Laudier

21:45

was considered a pretty safe choice

21:47

to start this integration

21:50

idea because he was already

21:52

a Department of Justice stenographer who was

21:54

a freelance journalist, and so um

21:58

people in the government were like, Oh, he's going

22:00

to be pliable. We can just get him to do

22:02

whatever we want. And so

22:05

in their minds, that was a lot safer than getting

22:07

maybe an ethel Pain, for instance,

22:10

who might be more of a firecracker. So,

22:12

considering such an outright hostile

22:15

and racist environment,

22:17

how on earth could a woman

22:20

of color break through

22:22

the ranks. We're going to talk about

22:24

that when we come right back from a quick break.

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23:52

So we keep teasing you about

23:55

Ethel pain like when are we When are we going to

23:57

dig in to old Ethel? Here?

23:59

Where is not? We're just gonna keep saying her

24:01

name and then it's gonna hint

24:03

at it finger well,

24:06

so we will talk about Ethel. We have so much

24:09

to talk about, but first

24:11

we have to talk about a predecessor. So

24:13

Ethel was almost the first

24:15

black female reporter in the White House Press Corps.

24:18

But her work builds right on top

24:20

of that of one Alice done

24:22

Again, and Alice Donegan herself

24:25

is a pretty impressive figure with

24:27

a lot of first She was the first black female

24:29

journalist accredited to the House and Senate

24:32

press galleries, the White

24:34

House, and the Supreme Court. And

24:36

she was the first to travel with the US President,

24:39

that president being Harry Truman during

24:41

his nine whistle stop tour of

24:44

eighteen Western states. And I love the story

24:47

where she was traveling. She was

24:49

the only black woman, but there were

24:51

also two black male reporters traveling

24:54

with this whistle stop tour and

24:56

Truman makes an unscheduled stop I think

24:59

in Montana or Wyoming,

25:01

one of those states. And

25:04

uh, I think it was at night.

25:07

It wasn't planned. She gets off

25:09

the train because one of her colleagues

25:11

back home had been like, you always need to get

25:13

off the train. Cover everything, keep your

25:16

ear to the ground at all times. But

25:18

her two uh, black

25:20

male colleagues who had no interest

25:23

in getting off the train. But

25:25

it just so happened that at this unscheduled

25:28

stop. This was Truman's first

25:30

time mentioning the

25:33

importance of civil rights to America

25:37

and she got the story, but at the risk

25:39

of losing her spot and the

25:41

press corps. She refused

25:43

to share her story with the rest of the

25:45

pool, particularly her two

25:48

black male colleagues, because she was like, oh,

25:50

you're not going to get off the train. Well,

25:52

then, I clearly, as a woman, have had

25:54

to work harder than you I

25:56

am. She she has this great quote about,

25:59

um, you know, women have to work harder because they're

26:01

not as secure in their positions and they have to prove

26:03

themselves, which is obviously something we still talk about

26:06

on the podcast today. Um

26:08

She's like, well, no, I'm I'm just going to write this story

26:10

and submitted. Well, and one of those dudes,

26:12

one of her colleagues, was Louis Laudier,

26:15

and he was not

26:18

helpful to her either. He was outright

26:21

rude about her and

26:24

Ethel Payne when Ethel Payne um steps

26:26

onto the scene and they were outright competitors.

26:29

Um. So for a little more about Dunnigan,

26:32

though, she became the Washington bureau

26:34

chief for the Associated Negro

26:36

Press starting in nineteen seven,

26:39

and she was really the link

26:41

between the African American community

26:44

and those early civil rights

26:46

related issues developing in Washington.

26:48

Like you said, I mean she reported on

26:51

Harry S. Truman, mentioning this issue for

26:53

the very first time. But even

26:55

just getting there, getting on that train ending

26:58

up in what wherever as

27:00

Wyominger, Montana was

27:02

not easy, and she

27:04

recounts her experience in

27:07

her nineteen seventy four autobiography

27:10

Alone Atop the Hill in case you're looking

27:12

for some new reading material, and

27:14

her account of just initially

27:17

trying to get into the press gallery

27:20

is exhausting. It is,

27:22

but I mean she was. She was relentless

27:25

as well, she should be. I I admire

27:27

people who are relentless. Um,

27:30

it is worth mentioning though the

27:32

subcurrent of what's going on here. Yes,

27:35

she was the Washington bara chief for the

27:37

A and P. However, this woman

27:40

barely made enough to live on like she and

27:42

Ethel Payne and many many others

27:44

had to work second jobs if they

27:46

wanted to pursue their passion of journalism.

27:49

So Dunnigan

27:51

was initially thwarted from getting accreditation

27:54

to access the Capital Press Gallery

27:57

because they said only daily reporters

27:59

were loud. This was strategic,

28:02

people, because so many black

28:04

papers were either weekly or monthly

28:07

and so she's like, okay,

28:09

I can't do that. She saw

28:12

admittance to the Periodicals Gallery,

28:14

but they wouldn't admit her because she didn't

28:16

write for a magazine. Convenient

28:20

Well, and all of this happened after

28:23

she submitted her application to

28:26

get access to the press gallery, didn't

28:28

hear anything, didn't hear anything. Finally

28:31

started checking in and she knew she was like,

28:33

I had to be annoying at that point,

28:36

and she pestered them to the point that they finally

28:38

were like, uh so, sorry, you

28:40

work for a weekly and that's too

28:42

bad. So then when she goes back around a

28:44

second time to periodicals like mm hmm, sorry,

28:48

it's not a magazine. Well,

28:50

so finally the Senate

28:52

Rules Committee has to hold a hearing

28:55

and they ordered news agency

28:57

reporters to be admitted. Yeah,

29:00

so she gets in that way. I mean, it

29:02

wasn't specifically like you

29:04

have to let black reporters

29:06

in there, like just you know, news agency

29:09

wink wink um. But she definitely

29:12

did not get any help from fellow

29:14

female journalists in Washington

29:16

at the time, as the Women's National Press

29:19

Club was whites only. Well,

29:21

yeah, and they they had her over

29:23

for dinner at one point, and

29:25

she said that she was so intimidated

29:28

that she didn't speak

29:30

the whole time, and so they didn't

29:33

end up inviting her to be a member. Seven

29:36

years later though, once she had established

29:38

herself and her name and her writing, they

29:41

did invite her to be a member, and

29:43

she basically talks about how, like, yeah,

29:45

I knew it was bs, like this is crap. They wouldn't

29:48

they wouldn't let me in seven years ago, but

29:50

suddenly they're like, oh, okay,

29:53

And she writes about how in her autobiography,

29:55

she writes about how it, for some

29:58

reason took seven years for the liberal

30:00

white women to finally get around

30:02

to deciding that having a black woman,

30:05

one black woman in their ranks was okay.

30:07

That was a thing that kind

30:09

of astonishing me over

30:11

and over again reading this history

30:13

of the Washington Press Corps, partially,

30:17

you know, because of our journalism

30:19

training and my

30:22

own assumption that like, journalists

30:25

are more liberal, right, they're

30:27

more open minded. You have to be objective,

30:29

that's the whole thing, right. No, No, they

30:31

were incredibly racist and exclusive

30:35

back then, just like so many other people.

30:38

No, I mean, yeah, I'm I'm not surprised

30:40

whatsoever. I mean, I worked at an

30:43

incredibly conservative newspaper for

30:45

four years, and reading

30:48

the editorial pages, I was like, I can't

30:50

believe. So no, I'm not

30:53

surprised. Yeah, that's very true.

30:55

I mean, and I know that of course they were like a bazillion

30:59

conservative punda and there's an entire

31:01

news network devoted to that kind

31:03

of news. But I guess, Caroline, I'm just

31:05

a little starry eyed. I'm a little starry eyed a cub

31:07

reporter hoping

31:10

everybody's practicing some empathy.

31:13

So hopping back into our

31:15

timeline, it's Alice

31:18

done again, is making her

31:20

name with so much dogged

31:23

persistence in Washington?

31:26

And where selful Pain? Was she up to? Ethel's

31:29

on our way to Japan? Wait what? Yeah?

31:31

Um, I guess we should probably back up, okay

31:34

and explain we've teased you.

31:37

We've hinted at Ethel's incredible

31:39

life long enough and they're like, wait, what she when

31:41

she's in Japan? What's

31:43

happening? Okay? So

31:46

backing up, way up. In nineteen eleven,

31:48

Ethel Pain is born in Chicago. She's the granddaughter

31:50

of slaves. Her dad works

31:53

as a pullman porter, but he dies

31:55

when she's just twelve years old from

31:57

a disease he contracted from handling

31:59

dirty laundry on one of the trains. And

32:02

up until this point, her mom had been a

32:05

full time stay at home mom until

32:09

her father's death, at which point her mom when

32:11

became a Latin teacher like you do just

32:14

teaching Latin. Uh.

32:16

But Ethel was really inspired

32:19

by a lot of what her mother taught

32:21

her. There was a lot of studying the Bible, but also

32:23

a lot of studying literature. There's some Louisa may

32:25

Alcott thrown in there. There's all

32:27

sorts of reading that really inspired

32:29

Ethel to be a word person.

32:32

And she actually though dreamed of becoming

32:34

a civil rights lawyer who would work on behalf

32:36

of the poor. But and

32:39

this should sound familiar to you if you have a studied

32:41

history or be listened to our episode on Polly Murray,

32:44

but h Payne was denied

32:46

admission to law school because of

32:48

her race. So fast forward to Ethel

32:51

Payne is hanging out mining

32:53

her own business and she encounters

32:56

outside of a tavern a

32:59

group of twenty five black men being

33:01

arrested by white police officers,

33:04

and wanting to know what's going on,

33:07

she goes up to one of the police officers

33:09

and it's like, hey, what what happened? Why are these

33:11

men getting arrested? And how does

33:14

he respond? He billy clubs her.

33:17

Well, yeah, don't forget he first cusses her out

33:19

right and then yeah, this results

33:21

in him hitting her. So

33:23

she gets hauled off to jail along with all the

33:25

all of these dudes who are getting arrested. Um.

33:28

She is released, but

33:30

she basically says no and

33:33

threatens the police that she is

33:36

going to go to the press to tell

33:38

them about all of his brutality unless

33:41

they release all of the dudes

33:43

along with her, and they do. Yeah.

33:45

Yeah, she succeeded, um,

33:47

and not surprisingly a year

33:50

later she's like, you know what,

33:52

I'm going to piece out. UM, So

33:54

she leaves home and her fiance

33:57

who both move Ethel to

33:59

be a hostess in Japan

34:02

for the Army Special Services Club

34:05

UM, organizing recreational activities

34:07

and entertainment for African American troops

34:10

because keep in mind the military is segregated

34:12

at this time. Now keep in mind, you know, Ethel's a person

34:14

with these huge dreams, right, like a huge

34:16

personality too. I mean, she's not afraid

34:19

to stand up even to the police, right. But

34:21

she had been working as a library clerk

34:24

and was totally bored and

34:26

so that's when she like, she's bored

34:28

in her job. She's got these big dreams and a big

34:30

personality. She's experienced police brutality

34:32

and is like, it's time to go to Japan,

34:35

as you do like you do. So in

34:37

nineteen though, a

34:39

reporter from the Chicago Defender

34:42

Guy named Alex Wilson stops

34:44

by Japan on his way

34:47

to report on the Korean War and

34:49

they hit it off, and she ends

34:52

up showing Wilson her

34:54

diary and he's like, this is

34:56

sensational. This is the kind of information

34:59

that we really need to be reporting

35:01

back to the black community

35:04

in the United States. So he asks her

35:06

and she grants her permission for him to take

35:08

the diary back to Chicago,

35:11

and he ends up turning the diary

35:13

entries into a front page

35:15

news story about the experiences

35:17

a black soldiers stationed in

35:19

Japan. And it is not a pretty

35:22

picture that she paints. She highlights

35:24

not only segregation but

35:26

also this huge

35:28

issue of black soldiers

35:31

fathering children with Japanese women

35:33

and then of course leaving

35:36

um and the story is huge,

35:39

so huge in fact that in

35:42

one the Chicago Defender is like, listen, you're

35:44

a good writer, you have an eye for news. Obviously,

35:47

why don't you come back from Japan? Will

35:50

give you a full time job.

35:52

Yeah, And so she looks at this opportunity and

35:54

basically says, I wanted

35:57

to be a lawyer. I wanted to change the

35:59

world that way, but that's not going to happen. Here's

36:02

another way that I can fulfill

36:04

what I perceive as my duty,

36:06

my desire to change the world. Pen

36:09

instead of gavel. The

36:11

pen is mightier than the gavel, I don't

36:13

know, or or a lawyer's briefcase,

36:16

The pen is mightier than a matlock suit. Is

36:18

that? Yes,

36:22

that's actually perfect um. And

36:24

keep in mind that that The Chicago Defender was actually

36:26

banned in a lot of towns because

36:29

it's motto was that American

36:31

race prejudice must be destroyed. I

36:33

mean, I think that that's a basic, important

36:36

statement, but that was dangerous

36:38

to a lot of people. So because

36:41

it was banned in so many areas, you have those

36:44

pullman porters who would stash copies

36:46

in their lockers and drop them at barbershops

36:49

and churches along their southern roots, and her

36:52

dad had been one of those people

36:54

when he worked as a porter. He had been

36:56

one of the people stashing those

36:58

copies of the newspaper in his locker

37:01

so that he could distribute them full

37:03

circle legacy. Well, and speaking

37:05

of mottos too, I would like to note that

37:08

the Chicago Defender's motto well

37:10

compliments her personal motto that

37:12

she borrowed from Frederick Douglas. Agitate,

37:15

Agitate, Agitate. Oh yeah, there's

37:18

no there's no removing

37:20

her personal views from her work. And

37:22

I mean this is critical to to who

37:25

she is and what she accomplished. I mean,

37:27

you know, people talk about agenda journalism

37:29

and advocacy journalism,

37:32

and Ethel Payne denied

37:34

that she had a bias, but

37:37

that whatever bias she had, it was

37:39

for the truth. And I think that work

37:41

like hers is still

37:43

incredibly important. But let's not get ahead

37:46

of ourselves. Yeah, and I quickly want to

37:48

mention too that she's hopping into

37:51

her job at the Chicago Defender untrained,

37:53

So I think this is around the time she starts

37:56

taking some classes at Northwestern's

37:59

Middle School of Journalism. So any

38:01

Northwestern alums or students listening

38:04

shout out to y'all. I would

38:06

have loved to have been in a class with Ethel Payne.

38:08

Can you imagine? Well, you're

38:11

probably like, well, I'm sure it would have been cool. Why do

38:13

you say that? And it's because she's a freaking rabble

38:16

rouser, which will get into more like if you can already

38:18

tell like, we're really excited about Ethel Paine. She's

38:20

kind of a journalism hero um.

38:23

But so after starting her full time job at

38:25

the Chicago defendsh she quickly makes her

38:27

mark in In In nineteen fifty two, her story

38:30

on the adoption crisis among African American

38:32

babies won her an Illinois

38:35

Press Association Award for Best News

38:38

Stories, and she also quickly established

38:41

her complete disinterest in

38:43

fluff pieces. Don't assign Ethel

38:45

a feature story on

38:48

because even when she was a sign of fluff piece,

38:50

she would still find the hard news angle in it and

38:53

find a way to insert her views

38:56

on the topic. And that's probably why

38:59

by three her

39:02

press compatriots or for dour

39:05

as a newsman's

39:07

newsman kind of like you know, a comedians comedian,

39:09

she was a newsman's newsman. Now sensing

39:12

her ambition and also

39:15

that instinct for hard news.

39:18

The Chicago Defender needed

39:20

someone to take over in

39:22

its Washington bureau, so they're

39:25

like, Ethel, head on out to

39:28

d C. It's only gonna be you.

39:30

You will be a one person bureau, but

39:33

you can do it. And

39:35

they I love the fanfare

39:38

with which the Chicago Defender announced

39:41

Ethel going to Washington on the front

39:43

page. The headline read,

39:45

miss Ethel Payne, one of the Chicago Defenders

39:48

crack news and feature writers, has

39:50

been assigned to Washington. Q

39:52

Celebratory trumpets. Yeah. And

39:55

she would later go on to talk about

39:57

how having a seat at

39:59

the table, so to speak, really

40:01

forced the mainstream

40:04

white media too not

40:06

only hear about

40:08

and acknowledge, but also report on issues

40:11

of civil rights that they were completely

40:13

ignoring. Um. One of the first

40:15

things that she reported on was the

40:17

fact that the Howard University choir

40:20

had been diverted away from

40:22

performing during the Republicans

40:25

annual Lincoln Day dinner, and of course the

40:27

white press did not report this. There

40:29

were a couple of choirs, one was from Emory,

40:31

one was from I think it was Duke

40:34

University Duke, and so Howard was the

40:36

third. Well, the two white choirs get

40:38

through just fine, but the Howard buss

40:40

is diverted a couple of times, and because

40:42

they want them to go into a special back

40:45

entrance. And this outraged

40:48

pain and so she reported on it, forcing

40:51

other people to finally recognize like, Okay,

40:53

well, I guess there are issues that we are ignoring.

40:56

Yeah, and this is

40:58

Eisenhower's turn that she

41:00

is stepping into and

41:03

right on the heels of the Howard University

41:06

incident during all of this, uh

41:09

Lincoln Day celebrating that the Republican

41:11

Party was doing. She

41:15

was outraged at Sherman

41:17

Adams, who was chief of

41:19

staff, because he apparently specially

41:21

requested for a black

41:23

face performer at another

41:26

Lincoln event, and she sent

41:28

him a telegram. I mean, this woman

41:30

has like barely been in d C. Like

41:32

a week, and she is sending a

41:34

telegram to the president's

41:37

chief of staff basically saying,

41:39

listen, there could have been a better

41:41

way to represent black

41:44

people on quote such an occasion,

41:46

more dignified and in keeping with the

41:48

progress of the race. I mean. She

41:51

clapped back, well,

41:53

I mean you also have to keep in mind what she herself was

41:55

facing while she was walking the streets of Washington,

41:58

d c I mean, she had to deal

42:00

with cabs not picking her up,

42:02

not being admitted to restaurants. UM.

42:05

When she was traveling to cover story,

42:07

she had to stay in private homes instead

42:09

of hotels, particularly in the South. There's one

42:11

story UM where she was

42:13

staying in a white professor friends

42:16

house and rocks were threatened through the window.

42:18

The professor ended up getting evicted from his

42:20

own apartment UM, simply

42:22

because he allowed her to stay

42:24

there. And she wasn't

42:27

afraid to speak

42:29

or rather write her mind about

42:31

the civil rights issues that were really

42:34

starting to bubble up at

42:36

the time. I mean, when Brown

42:39

versus the Board of Education Supreme

42:41

Court decision was handed down in nineteen fifty

42:44

four, she wasn't kicking

42:46

up her heels about it. She was distraught

42:49

and called it a poor compromise because

42:52

they did not stipulate

42:54

a timeline for integration. So she

42:57

was like, there's no timeline, and so this

42:59

is going to be a mess because we're gonna

43:01

have to go state by state now and protests

43:03

will happen. I mean, and she predicted all of

43:05

this stuff that did happen. And

43:07

she also had this presecent instinct

43:11

about the civil rights movement as

43:13

it was developing. She was one of the first to

43:16

spotlight the significance of Rosa

43:18

Parks and even MLK.

43:22

She was like, there's this preacher in Atlanta,

43:24

used twenty seven years old, and watch out for him.

43:26

Well, yeah, She was one of the first to note

43:29

how the clergy, the black clergy,

43:32

were sort of leading the way in the

43:34

civil rights movement. And

43:37

she was also though critical of MLK. She's

43:39

not like she gave him a free pass, but

43:41

she did voice concerns about

43:44

airing laundry

43:46

in a way that would attract the white press's attention.

43:49

She wanted to definitely

43:51

support leaders like MLK, and

43:54

she wanted him to succeed, but she also

43:56

wanted to do her due diligence of being a

43:58

critical reporter who could analyze

44:01

the situation. But there was that concern

44:03

that if the white press catches wind

44:05

of any criticisms, they might

44:08

just run with it and not give

44:10

him a seat at the table. And that's something

44:12

too, that's so so

44:15

fascinating about the

44:17

role of the black press at the time, and particularly

44:20

the handful of them who

44:22

were in Washington, because there

44:24

were all these separate conversations

44:27

that would be happening within these black

44:29

newspapers. I mean that was their functions

44:31

since what eight But

44:34

like you said, it's like they could speak but not

44:36

too loudly so as to

44:39

not attract too much attention. We'll

44:41

we'll come back to that in just a second.

44:43

But we should know that she probably covered

44:46

and participated and

44:48

more civil rights events than

44:50

any other journalist at the time. I

44:52

mean, she she was there for

44:55

the events that were happening in six

44:57

She was there for the Montgomery bus boycott

44:59

and the desegregation efforts at the University

45:02

of Alabama. In ninety seven,

45:04

she was in Arkansas for the Little

45:06

Rock nine and I think that's where she

45:08

was staying in the professor's home and got the

45:11

rock throne in the window. That's

45:13

war to nineteen sixty three, and

45:15

she's hopping into the

45:18

activism herself. She demonstrated in

45:20

Birmingham, she participated in the March

45:22

on Washington, and two years later

45:25

she marched from Selma to

45:27

Montgomery to demand

45:30

voting rights. Yeah, and she unintentionally

45:33

question mark made

45:36

civil rights and national issue when

45:40

during a press conference with

45:42

President Eisenhower, she

45:45

asked when he would ban

45:47

segregation in interstate travel and

45:49

he was none too pleased. I mean, this was

45:51

not just a black press issue.

45:54

Everybody reported on how angry

45:56

Eisenhower got and how he used clipped

45:59

tones and clipped words with her.

46:02

Uh. This effectively moved

46:04

civil rights into the national news

46:07

cycle, and it drove Eisenhower

46:09

on a more personal note to Boycott

46:12

ethel Payne. I think in the rest of her time,

46:14

the couple of years that she was

46:16

still in the press corps, he just answered

46:18

maybe two of her questions in her remaining

46:21

time. Yeah, And I believe that happened

46:23

in when he when

46:26

he got his feathers all ruffled. And

46:30

when I was first reading this, I was like, wait,

46:32

so what what Why did him getting

46:34

annoyed set off national

46:36

headlines and like the Washington Post and all of

46:38

these bigger newspapers. And

46:41

then I read his exact response and was

46:43

like, oh, so, in

46:46

response to her question of just like, okay,

46:48

when are you gonna like, uh, you know,

46:50

enforced desegregation of interstate

46:53

travel, he said, quote, the administration

46:55

is trying to do what it thinks and believes

46:57

to be decent and just in this country.

47:00

Okay, following you, Mike.

47:02

But then he says, and it's not in

47:05

the effort to support any particular

47:07

or special group of any kind. Who

47:11

All right, so you are framing the African

47:13

American community as a special interest

47:15

group, and with that, civil

47:18

rights becomes a national conversation.

47:20

It's not just happening

47:23

within the Black press anymore. It's

47:26

funny though, because both Ethel Payne and Alice

47:28

Dunagan had annoyed the

47:31

president at these press conferences with

47:33

these these gal reporters, as

47:35

their colleague Lewis Laudier called

47:37

them. Yeah, he was so dismissive of

47:39

Alice and Ethel. But at the same time too,

47:42

I mean, remember, yeah, that Ethel

47:44

and Alice are in Washington at the

47:46

same time, and I mean,

47:48

talk about personality differences. You have

47:50

Alice Dunnagan, who was so much more reserved,

47:53

and then Ethel comes in and she's

47:55

such a bulldozer. And

47:59

when incident with Eisenhower

48:02

happened, the Black press freaked

48:05

out. They accused her of

48:07

being overly assertive because

48:09

it was again it was that issue of like, Okay,

48:11

we can't we can't make too

48:13

many waves, don't like act out

48:15

because it's taken so much for us to even get

48:18

in the room in Washington.

48:20

But she did not care at

48:22

all about likability. Um. She had a great

48:24

quote saying, I admit it, I was obnoxious,

48:27

stubborn and absolutely impossible

48:29

to work with, impervious to

48:31

all suggestions as to how to behave with

48:33

civility. But when you're a black reporter

48:36

man or woman, that's part of your job.

48:38

Yeah. I mean, but there were other reporters

48:40

as part of that press corps who were saying that that

48:42

question should have been asked anyway, And

48:45

instead of being like tisk tiss ethel,

48:47

were like, hey, why aren't the rest of you asking

48:49

these questions? And because of her

48:52

work, and because of how political

48:54

she was, and because of how involved she was, she

48:57

was the only woman invited to lbj's

48:59

off is for the signing of the Civil Rights Act

49:01

and the Voting Rights Act. He only invited

49:04

people who were important and critical to

49:06

the civil rights movement, and

49:08

she was one of those people. She ended up

49:10

actually getting two of the pins that

49:12

he used to sign those acts. Um.

49:15

And you mentioned earlier about

49:18

how she wasn't necessarily an

49:20

objective journalist, as much as she claimed

49:22

that she didn't have bias, but

49:25

I mean she it was never really her goal,

49:28

like you talked about. I mean, her goal was to whether

49:30

whether she you know, kind of was

49:33

blind to her own biases. She was

49:35

really driven to

49:38

uncover the truth. And

49:40

in talking about that, she once said,

49:42

the privilege of being a White House correspondent,

49:45

wasn't that enough? Why couldn't I be quiet

49:47

and not stir things up? Well,

49:50

I didn't think that was my purpose. If

49:52

you've lived through the black experience in this

49:54

country, you feel that every day you're assaulted

49:57

by the system. You're either acquiescent,

49:59

which I think is wrong, or else you just

50:01

rebel and you kick against

50:04

it. Yeah, and she

50:06

says I wanted to constantly, constantly,

50:08

constantly hammer away raise the questions

50:10

that needed to be raised. And she

50:13

later said that, you know, I

50:15

was part of the problem if I didn't speak

50:17

up. So she felt compelled

50:19

to speak up. This is a woman who had wanted to be a

50:21

civil rights lawyer for the specifically

50:24

for the poor and disenfranchised. So

50:27

you know, she's made quite the name for

50:29

herself. She's an incredibly successful

50:32

reporter, and so the Chicago Defender actually

50:34

sends her overseas

50:36

to be their international reporter. So

50:39

she goes back across the

50:41

ocean, and lands in Vietnam

50:44

on Christmas Day, nineteen

50:46

sixties six. She was the first African

50:48

American woman reporter to do

50:51

this. Well, I mean, she was the first member

50:53

of the Black press to go to Vietnam period

50:55

too. I mean, and it was

50:58

super rare for just

51:00

a female correspondent period

51:03

to a exist but then

51:05

also be in a war

51:07

zone. And her reporting over there of a

51:10

situation for African American troops

51:12

in the war was so important

51:14

because back in the United States,

51:16

the community was really divided over

51:19

Vietnam because of

51:21

the irony of US

51:23

soldiers being over there fighting to allegedly

51:26

free a people while its own people

51:29

had to fight tooth and nail for equality.

51:31

But at the same time, Ethel Payne was

51:34

not overtly critical of

51:36

the war because this was the first

51:38

time the army was fully integrated,

51:41

and she considered the black soldiers quote

51:43

free of racial barriers. Well.

51:47

Part of that was that a lot of

51:49

reporters at the time, a lot of black reporters

51:51

at the time, were encouraged by their home

51:54

papers to try to gloss over any

51:56

potential racism or segregation that

51:58

was still lingering. They want to

52:00

present a better picture

52:02

to the people back home. Um, in

52:04

order to support the war, in order to support

52:06

African American soldiers. She would

52:08

later go on to say that she regretted not being

52:11

more critical of the war. Yeah,

52:13

and and after Vietnam, I

52:16

mean, she just continues traveling. She reports

52:18

on the Asian Africa Summit in Indonesia.

52:21

She travels to Ghana with President Nixon.

52:23

UM and side note on that when

52:26

I think it was was it Kissinger? He specifically

52:29

requested her. He said he wanted that

52:32

woman who gives me hell on CBS

52:34

to accompany him. Oh my god, I love it. Um.

52:37

And she ended up going to China

52:39

with Susan Sontag and a group of other people,

52:41

and they were I think one of, if

52:44

not the first group of

52:46

Americans who went

52:48

into China, Like who were even allowed

52:51

in China at that time. But

52:53

in the nineteen seventies, she ends up finally

52:55

retiring from the Chicago Defender.

52:57

They tried to make her Um actually

53:00

like manager of the local news

53:02

operations. She was just like, I can't do this. I'm

53:04

not into this local stuff. Sorry.

53:07

But she's then hired on by CBS

53:10

and becomes the first black female news

53:13

commentator for a major radio and

53:15

TV network, And I think it was in

53:17

an interview with Gwen Eiffel, the author

53:19

of one of these fantastic books about

53:22

black women, journalist talks about how

53:25

um there was a well known black

53:27

male newscaster who

53:30

told this author that I saw um

53:33

ethel pain on television and I knew

53:35

I could do that too. And that story

53:38

it just gives me goose bumps because

53:40

we talk all the time about like role models

53:42

and seeing yourself represented. And

53:46

not only is this a black person feeling

53:48

like I can achieve something

53:50

in a white dominated industry, but it's

53:52

a man seeing an incredibly inspiring

53:54

woman on screen too. If you see it,

53:56

you can be at Caroline. And

53:58

as she was working for CBS,

54:01

she also continued expanding her reach

54:04

with syndicated columns. UM so

54:06

she'd be she was a well known name around

54:09

the country. Um. And she died in

54:13

and there was a quote

54:15

that she gave talking about how she had a box

54:17

seat on history and

54:19

she was like, I like to think that I

54:22

helped change things. She

54:24

did. She for sure wanted to be remembered

54:27

as an agent of change, and without a doubt

54:29

she was, Yeah, I mean, the the only

54:32

sad part about it is how unsung

54:35

she has been. UM. But we

54:37

should also note about

54:39

the black press at the time after

54:41

the Civil rights movement, it really starts

54:43

to fade from relevance

54:46

as these larger newspapers start hiring

54:49

the best and brightest black journalists

54:51

and they begin actually covering

54:54

civil rights and other African American

54:56

relevant issues. And then on top

54:58

of that, you have the girl success

55:01

of Ebony and Jet magazines

55:04

that kind of pushes these,

55:06

uh, these black newspapers out of business.

55:09

I mean, because you've been have higher ad

55:11

rates. I mean, now we're just getting into the weeds

55:13

of how um journalism

55:15

operations were. But essentially

55:17

they were evil and her

55:20

counterparts did such a good job they

55:22

kind of put the black press out of business in a lot of ways.

55:25

But you see sort of

55:28

the repeated re

55:30

emergence of a vocal black

55:32

press so to speak nowadays,

55:35

not to use the word nowadays and sound like an old

55:37

but you have all of these incredible

55:39

voices emerging online on

55:42

Twitter. You've got the route which I love to

55:44

read, UM, that is bringing

55:46

up issues that are relevant to communities

55:49

of color that again the

55:52

mainstream press is not paying

55:54

the same attention to. Yeah, I mean, and

55:57

the media might have changed, but I think that the

56:00

voices are getting louder. I mean because it's also

56:02

not just journalists and established

56:05

thinkers like Jamil Smith,

56:08

but you also just have the existence of black

56:10

Twitter. I mean that it's I mean, there's

56:12

that level of organizing

56:15

that is happening. It's

56:17

just more digital

56:20

than I r L. Yeah, and I

56:22

think that. And I don't want to put words in

56:25

Ethel's mouth. I'm sure she would be

56:27

more than happy to spit them out. She would be

56:29

more than happy to speak for herself. Um.

56:31

But I think she would be really excited by

56:33

the social justice landscape

56:35

today. I mean, she

56:38

was absolutely an agenda journalist

56:41

because I mean the truth is, you do have

56:44

to change people's hearts and minds

56:46

from the ground up. Yes, yes,

56:48

when you get Supreme Court rulings

56:50

and legislation, that is

56:53

the ultimate goal, But first

56:55

you have to do a lot of mind changing. And

56:57

that was that was her goal. She wanted to change

56:59

people lives. Yeah, I mean, and and also

57:01

too, I mean Supreme Court decisions and

57:04

legislation, that's not where it stops. I mean,

57:06

think about her reaction to Brown,

57:08

I mean just being so um,

57:11

so upset at almost how toothless

57:13

it was. But speaking of ethel

57:16

Pain being alive today, oh

57:18

man, I wish she was on Twitter. Oh

57:20

god, I know I have the same thought

57:23

or tumbler. Well,

57:25

listeners, now I want

57:27

to hear from you. What

57:30

are your thoughts on all of this? Have you ever

57:32

heard of ethel Pain before? Are there

57:34

people that we didn't talk about, figures in the black

57:36

press that we should have mentioned that

57:39

we didn't let us know? Help us fill in

57:42

all of the pieces of this story

57:44

that all of us need to know. So much more about

57:46

mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com is our

57:48

email address. You can also tweet us at

57:50

mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,

57:53

and we have a couple of messages to share with you right

57:56

now. Well,

58:01

I have a letter here from Rachel in response

58:03

to our miscarriage interview

58:06

with Dr Jessica Zucker. She says,

58:08

heycy and see, it's me, the gal who stopped

58:11

taking sperano lactone so she could get pregnant.

58:13

Well conceived, I did, but it quickly

58:15

ended in an ectopic pregnancy. I

58:17

opted to have surgery as treatment, and literally

58:20

the first time I looked at my phone and recovery,

58:22

I saw that the eye had a miscarriage episode

58:24

had dropped. It took me two weeks to bring

58:26

myself to listen to the episode, but I'm so

58:29

glad that I did. While my loss

58:31

was early on, it was certainly traumatic, with

58:33

emergency major surgery and the loss of

58:35

one of my fallopian tubes. Although

58:37

I didn't know that I was pregnant until I knew that something

58:39

was wrong, I still had to grieve the

58:41

disappointment and the perceived failure of my

58:43

otherwise healthy and somewhat youthful body,

58:46

and the loss of a crucial part of my reproductive

58:48

system. Something that I thought would be so

58:50

natural and easy was suddenly a disaster.

58:53

I have found refuge in the support of friends,

58:55

family, and lady co workers, because

58:57

when you disappear for a week, at least keep people

59:00

the office have to know the whole story. When

59:02

I tell my story, I always say that the women need

59:04

to discuss the issues more. I

59:06

mentioned to my husband that what happened to us is

59:08

rare. His response, no, it's not.

59:11

All the articles I've read say it's

59:13

about one in fifty pregnancies and anek

59:15

topic one in fifty. That is

59:18

so much more common than I ever would have expected.

59:20

Pregnancy laws in any way, is a very

59:22

real possible outcome of conception, and

59:24

I just keep thinking that if we had been hearing

59:26

about it in a real and honest manner

59:29

our whole lives, we would have

59:31

been better equipped to deal with the situation.

59:34

Thank you for the interview with Dr Zucker. It could

59:36

not have come to me at a better time. I'm

59:39

sorry for that traumatic experience you had to go through,

59:41

but we really appreciate you sharing your story. So

59:44

I've got to let her hear from Kim

59:46

about our episode on NASA's

59:49

Hidden Women, and she writes, I

59:51

wanted to comment on the word hidden in your podcast

59:53

title. You're sad that these amazing

59:55

women aren't household names, and some of

59:57

them were impossible to research. This

1:00:00

the problem inherent in STEM fields.

1:00:02

We don't watch science like we watch sports.

1:00:05

Great accomplishments aren't often labeled

1:00:07

great until we can look at them through the lens of history,

1:00:09

and much of the work is done behind closed doors

1:00:12

or private companies. So your podcast

1:00:14

is a great example of something I tell the women

1:00:16

engineers around me. Don't let

1:00:18

your history be forgotten. Write it down,

1:00:21

talk to people. Even if it's complicated.

1:00:23

Think of the ways you could explain to a first

1:00:25

grader what it is you're doing to make the world

1:00:27

a better place. I'm an electrical

1:00:30

engineer in the aviation industry. What

1:00:32

what? I helped figure out how

1:00:34

to make cockpit displays, radios

1:00:36

and sensors work together. And I love

1:00:39

all caps my job. But

1:00:41

growing up, I wasn't sure what electrical engineers

1:00:43

did. I liked physics and had

1:00:45

a hunch I could make it. It was a gutsy

1:00:48

decision, but it should have been an obvious choice.

1:00:50

Telling our stories and all the other ones like Katherine

1:00:52

Johnson's will make us less hidden and will help

1:00:55

all of the next girls know that they're taking

1:00:57

the right steps into STEM

1:00:59

and I couldn't agree more. Kim

1:01:02

and listeners, Now, we'd love to

1:01:04

hear from you, Mom

1:01:06

Staffatt. How stuff Works dot com is our

1:01:08

email address and for links all of our social

1:01:10

media as well as all of our blogs, videos and

1:01:12

podcasts with our sources. So you

1:01:15

can learn more about ethel

1:01:17

Pain and the Black Press. Head on over the

1:01:19

Stuff Mom Never told You dot

1:01:21

com

1:01:26

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1:01:28

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