Ethel Payne

On August 14, 1911 in Chicago, Illinois, Ethel Payne was born, who would become known as a fearless civil rights reporter. She was born to William and Bessie Austin who worked hard to care for six children. Unfortunately, when Ethel was twelve, her father, who worked as a Pullman porter, passed away. This made Bessie obligated to teach Latin and clean homes to support her family.

            As soon as Ethel graduated in 1920, she wanted to fulfill her dream to become a lawyer.  Due to her race, she was rejected from law school. Determined, she attended college in Chicago, called Crane Jr. College and the Medill School of Journalism after discovering her love in writing after attending Lindblom High School. Ethel also had the opportunity to be a hostess for the Army Services Club, which quickly sent her to Tokyo, Japan.

 While in Japan, Ethel continuously wrote in her diary everything she encountered during her journey. In 1950, she met with a man by the name of Alex Wilson. Ethel shared her diary with him and he was very impressed by her work. Alex asked if he could publish them in the Chicago Defender, she happily agreed. To her surprise, most of her work was published front page and received a job for the newspaper. After returning to the United States in 1951, she started with only features and “moved up the latter.” The editor asked Ethel to be the correspondent of the Chicago Defender.

            Many of her articles contained desegregation and Civil Rights issues. She worked extremely hard on discovering information, presenting interviews, and watching Civil Rights marches. She strongly believed that civil rights was her top priority in writing and was very brave for covering touchy subjects. In 1954 she became the chief and  wrote for the Chicago Defender for twenty-seven years.

In 1972, she became the first black female radio and television commentator for CBS until 1982. For Ethel Payne’s dedication to her work and bravery, she received numerous awards including, Africare Distinguished Service Award in 1983, the TransAfrica African Freedom Award in 1987 and an award in 1967 from the Capital Press Club for her Vietnam Report. She passed away of a heart attack May 28, 1991, at the age of 79. Ethel Payne is still very well known and will be remember by her famous quote, “I fought all my life to bring about change, to correct injustices and the inequalities in the system.”

http://www.state.il.us/hpa/Illinois%20History/408Toennies.pdf
http://www.esperstamps.org/aa60.htm