85In stark contrast: ChDe, 4/28/1951, 2 and 4/28/1951, 14; Vernon Jarrett (The HistoryMakers A2000.028), interview by Julieanna Richardson, 06/27/2000, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 7. Jarrett hosted the first daily black radio newscast.
86Although it covered: Ehrenhalt, The Lost City, 150.
86As she faced: Most women on newspaper staffs wrote for the women’s page or handled society and church news. When asked if she ever considered doing society news, Payne said, “No way! No, I had no taste for society news, none whatsoever.” ELPOH, 35.
87A natty dresser: ELPOH, 34.
88An elaborate system: Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 47; Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun: Thirtieth Anniversary Edition (New York: Samuel French, Inc., 1958), 137.
88Health care, even: Richard Wright, Black Boy (New York: Harper Perennial, 1993), 356.
89In no time: ChDe, 5/5/1951, 14; ChDe, 6/16/1951, 14.
89As she became: Ehrenhalt, The Lost City, 160.
90The articles were: ChDe, 6/30/1951, 13. At one plant, a manager provided a summation of the pattern of race relations. “If two white people have a quarrel, it’s just another quarrel. If two Negroes quarrel, it’s a disturbance; but if a white person and a Negro quarrel, it becomes an ‘incident.’” (ChDe, 7/28/1951, 13.)
90On the other hand: ChDe, 7/14/1951, 13.
90Her output was: ELPOH, 30.
91On a sunny: ChDe, 1/19/1952, 1.
91Twenty-six years after: ChDe, 1/26/1952, 15.
92When they reached: ChDe, 2/2/1952, 15.
92In fact, the: Guild Reporter, 2/22/1952, 3.
93Within a few: ChDe, 4/21/1951, 3.
93Payne had not: Victor Groza, Karen F. Rosenberg, Clinical and Practice Issues in Adoption: Bridging the Gap Between Adoptees Placed as Infants and as Older Children (New York: Praeger, 1998), 110; Donna L. Franklin, Ensuring Inequality: The Structural Transformation of the African-American Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 138.
93As a result: Ellen Herman, Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 129.
94In the spring: ChDe, 4/12/1952, 1.
95For four weeks: ChDe, 5/3/1951, 1.
95The series was: ChDe, 6/28/1952, 4; ELPOH, 36.
95The editors assigned: ChDe, 6/07/1952, 1.
96In subsequent installments: ChDe, 6/14/1952, 1.
96There was little: ChDe, 6/28/1952, 2.
97The series resonated: ChDe, 10/18/1952, 3.
98This was a direct: ChDe, 7/26/1952, 1.
99Instead of seeking: Crisis, August-September 1952, 413.
99Slender in build: Keith M. Finley, Southern Opposition to Civil Rights in the United States Senate: A Tactical and Ideological Analysis, 1938–1965 (PhD dissertation, Louisiana State University, 2003.)
102Reaching Washington on: ChDe, 1/31/1953, 13; details about the inauguration may be found at http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/presidential/1953_inauguration.html.
103A more demure: See the oral history interview with Philleo Nash, who served variously as a high-ranking special assistant in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. HSTPL.
103“As the last”: ChDe, 1/31/1953, 1.
103But her stories: ELPOH, 37.
104On the other hand: ChDe, 6/6/1953, 4; 6/14/1953, 14; 3/21/1953, 15.
104Quite to her: ChDe, 6/13/1953, 3; 11/7/1953, 15.
104While in Tulsa: ELPMSRC, B1657.
106She drafted a request: ELP to LM, ELPMSRC, correspondence, B1657.
107Five days earlier: Herald Tribune, 2/11/1954; NYT, 2/11/1954; WaPo, 2/11/1954, 8; ChDe, 2/13/1954, 1.
108The exclusion of: Paul William Schmidt, The History of the Ludwig Drum Company (Fullerton, CA: Centerstream Publications, 1991), 64; ELP telegram to Sherman Adams, 2/6/1954, Correspondence, ELPMSRS Box 1657; Cross Reference Sheet, Payne, Miss Ethel L., 2/6/1954, Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President, 1953–61, DDEPL; ChDe, 2/13/1954, 1.
108A few months: ELPOH, 37.
109Since the end: ChDe, 2/7/1953, 3.
109With the fanfare: ChDe, 11/28/1953, 1.
109E. Frederic Morrow: David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Villard Books, 1993), 425–426; Milwaukee Wisconsin Sentinel Journal, 1/16/2009; Simeon Booker, the only black reporter on the staff of the Washington Post, said he couldn’t even eat lunch in the cafeteria of the Interstate Commerce Commission, where he went to cover stories on segregation. (Simeon Booker with Carole McCabe Booker, Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Account of the Civil Rights Movement (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2013), 43–44).
110In late November: Waters to ELP, 11/30/1953, Correspondence Folder, ELPMSRC B1657; Autobiographical Notes, ELPMSRC B1672.
110A few weeks: ELP to EPW, 12/5/1953, Correspondence Folder, ELPMSCR, Box 1657; AfAm, 11/3/1979, 7.
110That night Maxwell: Louis Martin, Memoirs Draft 1, LMLOC Box 8.
111Rabb and other: Washington to Wilton B. Persons (assistant chief of staff in the White House), 6/3/1953, Negro Newspapers and Clippings Folder, Maxwell Rabb Box 53, DDEPL.
111In his talk: Morrow quoted in Ivan A. Zasimczuk, Maxwell M. Rabb: A Hidden Hand of the Eisenhower Administration in Civil Rights and Race Relations (master’s thesis, University of California Davis, 1997), 36; ELP to EPW, 12/5/1953, Correspondence Folder, ELPMSRC B1657.
111In the corridor: ChDe, 8/13/1955, 18B; Donald A. Ritchie, Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 28.
112In 1948, for: Ritchie, Reporting from Washington, 37; Rodger Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice: African-American Women Journalists Who Changed History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994), 112.
112Female reporters had: Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice, 112; Franklin D. Mitchell, Harry S. Truman and the News Media: Contentious Relations, Belated Respect (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), 130 and 141.
113But before he: Ruth Edmonds Hills, ed., The Black Women Oral History Project, Vol.3 (Westport, CT: Meckler, 1991), 100. The reporter, Lacey Reynolds, was also known to have a keen sense of humor. When Interior Secretary Harold Ickes complimented Reynolds on a story, he said. “Your words of praise almost rendered me speechless.”
“I guess,” replied Reynolds, “I am about the only one in Washington who ever accomplished that result, Mr. Secretary.” (Drew Pearson, Merry-Go-Round column, Palm Beach Post, 7/8/1942, 4.)
113A couple of: Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice, 113.
113At first, neither: ELPOH, 48; Ted (last name not indicated) on New York Post stationery to MMR, 3/37/1953, Negro Newspapers and Clippings Folder, Maxwell Rabb Box 53, DDEPL; Ritchie, Reporting from Washington, 42.
114Despite her fury: Melvin Cray taped interview with Ethel Payne 1984 for the Dollie Robinson documentary, Media Genesis Productions, LLC; Sherrod, Ethel L. Payne, 32.
115“Mr. President,” she: Presidential Press Conference Transcript, 2/10/1953, APP.
115When the press: Autobiographical notes, ELPMSRC, Box 1672.
116Payne’s question to: New York Herald Tribune, 2/11/1954; LaTi, 2/11/1954, 7; WaPo, 2/11/1954, 8. “Because Miss Payne raised the question at the president’s press conference,” the Defender proudly noted in an editorial a week later, “daily papers throughout the nation, which had ignored the incident, filled their readers in on the background to report the president’s apology.” (ChDe, 2/20/1954, 11.)
116Payne was no: ELPOH, 53.
116“From then on”: ELPOH, 45.
116Two days after: ChDe, 2/27/1954, 5.
117Dressed in a: ELP to JHS, 1/28/1954, Correspondence folder, ELPMSCR B1657; ChDe, 4/9/1955, 12.
117In both meetings: ChDe, 2/27/1954, 5; Correspondence in Rabb folders, DDEPL.
117Rabb was not: ChDe, 3/20/1954, 14.
119Et
hel Payne was: ELP to JHS 2/22/1954, ELPMSRC B1657.
119She was concerned: ChDe, 1/1/1955, 12.
119Payne submitted twelve: Correspondence and memorandums can be found in RMNPL, Box 144 of Vice-President General Correspondence, Chicago Defender.
120In the end: ELP to JHS 2/22/1954, ELPMSRC B1657.
120To some, Payne’s: Essence, 3/1974, 94, 96.
121Communists had never: ELPOH, 39, 41.
121She believed McCarthy: ELPOH, 39. For an account of Payne’s involvement with the McCarthy hearings, see Jon Marshall, “The First Lady of the Black Press vs. Joseph McCarthy: Ethel Payne’s Coverage of the Annie Lee Moss Hearings,” presented at the American Journalism Historians Conference, Kansas City, MO, October 2011.
122Payne made sure: ChDe, 3/6/1954, 1.
123To Payne, the: ELPHO, 39.
123With the television: Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, See It Now (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955), 55–67.
123McCarthy resumed the: ChDe, 3/30/1954, 1.
125Payne went back: The day was actually not Wednesday, as Payne wrote, but Thursday.
125By April 1954: ChDe, 4/24/1954, 7.
126The first was: ChDe, 4/3/1954, 3.
126Payne’s second, even: ELP to EPW, 3/16/1954, Correspondence Folder, ELPMBRC B1657.
126Waters followed Payne’s: ChDe, 4/3/1954, 12.
127Payne’s flattering assessment: NYT, 4/4/1954, WaPo, 4/4/1954, ChDe 6/5/1954, 2.
127At the White: MMR to ELP, 4/1/1954; EFM to ELP, 4/2/1953, Correspondence, ELPMSRC, B1657; ELPMSRC, B1665.
127Two weeks later: ChDe, 4/17/1954, 14.
129As she had: ChDe, 12/19/1953, 1, 4.
130The Mondays of: Juan Williams, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (New York: Times Books, 1998), 225; Lerone Bennett Jr., “D-Day at the Supreme Court,” Ebony, May 2004.
130But as the: Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Knopf, 1976), 705.
131At 12:52 PM: LAT, 5/18/1954, 1; ChDe, 5/29/1954, 2.
131At last Warren: Jim Newton, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (New York: Riverhead, 2006), 325.
132For Payne it: ChDe, 5/29/1954, 4. Ebony, May 1979, 174; NYT, 5/18/1954, 1.
132When the decision: Helen Reed interview with author.
133Even though its: Eisenhower Press Conference, 5/19/1954, APP.
135Prior to May: ELPOH, 44; Eisenhower Press Conference, 4/7/1954, APP.
136A few weeks: Eisenhower Press Conference, 5/5/1954, APP.
136Payne’s two attempts: “Old Hands in Washington: Portrait of Black Journalists,” Horizons, National Public Radio, aired January 1, 1984, copy on file at the Library of Congress.
137Payne could not: ChDe, 8/13/1950, 18b.
137Payne made it: ChDe, 6/19/1954, 4.
138“You know,” she: ELPOH, 45; Ritchie, Reporting from Washington, 41.
138Payne appreciated the: Henry G. LaBrie, Perspectives of the Black Press (Kennebunkport, ME: Mercer House Press, 1974), 158; ELPOH 38, 41.
139Louis Lautier didn’t: ELP Autobiographical Notes, ELPMSRC, B1672.
139Mitchell publicly rebutted: AfAm, 5/25/1954, 3.
139The president resumed: Hagerty diary 6/16/1954 Box 1, DDEPL.
139Two days later: Eisenhower News Conference, 6/16/1954, APP.
141For forty-four years: Jet, 7/29/1954, 6–7.
141If for no: ChDe, 4/24/1954, 2.
142Payne complained to: ELP to Waters and Martin, 6/24/1954, correspondence, ELPHMSCR, B1657.
144The president drew: The audio recording of the president’s response makes his anger clear, unlike the printed transcripts. ELPOH, 46.
145Payne was gratified: Washington Star, 7/7/1954, 1; NYT, 7/7/1954, 14; Panama Tribune clipping, ELPMSRC, Box 1657.
145Payne’s own paper: ChDe, 7/17/1954, 1.
145Dunnigan rallied to: ChDe, 7/24/1954, 1.
146But Lautier didn’t: Alice Allison Dunnigan, A Black Woman’s Experience: From Schoolhouse to White House (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1974), 96–97; Hagerty to McCaffree, 2/9/1955, Central files DDEPL.
146When Payne entered: Autobiographical Notes, ELPMSRC B1672; WaPo, 4/27/1959, 59.
147The rules of: Both the Senate and House rules have carried this phrase since the inception of press regulations. For more on this see, Stephen Hess, ed., Live from Capitol Hill: Essays on Congress and the Media (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1991), 30.
148The White House remained: ChDe, 8/7/1954, 12; 8/7/1954, 1.
149After clawing her: ELPOH, 48.
149Her reporting grew: ELPOH, 50.
149In the time: Women in the Federal Service: 1954 Women’s Bureau Pamphlet, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC, 1954; ELP to LEM, 11/22/1954, correspondence folder, ELPMSRC Box 1657.
150For a newspaper: ChDe, 1/7/1955, 1; Milwaukee Sentinel, 1/3/1955, 7.
151Payne’s phone rang: ELPOH, 63.
152In Paris, writer: Richard Wright, The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference (New York: World Publishing Co, 1956), 14.
152On the floor: Adam C. Powell, Adam by Adam (New York: Kensington Books, 2002), 103.
153It was the: Quoted in Cary Fraser, “An American Dilemma: Race and Realpolitik in the American Response to the Bandung Conference, 1955,” Window on Freedom (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 120.
153The administration told: Powell, Adam by Adam, 103.
153The black press: If Lautier worked for an impoverished news agency, he gave no hint of it. “I went home and nonchalantly announced that I was going to fly around the world,” Lautier said. “My wife became interested and decided she wanted to accompany me.” (AfAm, 4/5/1955, 3)
153The flurry of: Shaw Livermore to Nelson A. Rockefeller, 6/6/1955, Record Group 4, Special Assistant to the President, Afro-Asia: Colonialism, Neutralism—Bandung Conference. NARA.
153On the suggestion: F. A. Jamieson to Nelson A. Rockefeller, 3/9/1955, Record Group 4, Special Assistant to the President, Afro-Asia: Colonialism, Neutralism—Bandung Conference. NARA.
154Meanwhile, unaware that: The best book on the CIA’s involvement with the media, keeping track of the various players, is Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). See also Carl Bernstein, “The CIA and the Media,” Rolling Stone, 10/20/1977.
154“One of Life’s: C. D. Jackson to Nelson A. Rockefeller, 3/28/1955, Record Group 4, Special Assistant to the President, Afro-Asia: Colonialism, Neutralism—Bandung Conference. NARA.
155If not money: Guild Reporter, 2/22/1952, 3.
155He had just: Carl Rowan, Breaking Barriers: A Memoir (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992), 128.
155Even Richard Wright’s: Michael Faber, The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 416–417. For more on Wright and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, see Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 201–202.
156Cartwright, the Hunter: AmNe, 4/9/1955, 1.
156But if it: AtWo, 4/30/1955, 1; ELP to LEM, 3/22/1955, and ELP to LEM, 3/28/1955, Correspondence File, ELPMSRC B1657. Until the end of her life, Payne credited the Defender with paying for the trip. “I was a little astonished that my publisher would open up his purse to send me,” she said in the 1980s. (Terry, Missing Pages, 2.) It was uncharacteristic of her not to have been a bit suspicious, especially when she knew that the government was funding Lautier’s trip.
157On April 13: ChDe, 4/16/1955.
157As the plane: ELP, “Reflections from a Mountain Top,” undated typescript, 1, ELPLOC B41F2.
157Attending the Bandung: ELP “Reflections,” 1.
157Including a refueling: ELPOH, 64.
158In the short: ChDe, 4/30/1955, 12.
158At the airport: ELPOH, 64.
159Reaching the tarmac: Powell, Adam by Adam, 106.
159Nor were the: Payne, “Reflections,�
�� 2; Wright, The Color Curtain, 177; ELPHO, 65.
160The city of: Christopher Rand, “Four Hours by Rail from Jakarta,” New Yorker, 6/11/1955, 39; Rowley, Richard Wright, 465.
160The city’s fourteen: AtWo, 4/21/1955, 2; Hartford Courant, 3/25/1955, 34A; ELP, “Reflections,” 3; ChDe 8/6/1955, 4.
161The work got: ELPOH, 66.
161Without question the: ChDe, 3/4/1972, 26; Rand, “Four Hours by Rail from Jakarta,” 62.
162Payne’s enthusiasm turned: ChDe, 5/7/1955, 12.
162For Payne, the: ChDe, 3/30/1955, 12.
163On the fourth: Payne, “Reflection,” 4.
163Payne spent most: ELPOH, 72.
164After each long: ELPOH 71; Rowan, Breaking Barriers, 129.
164“Years later,” Payne: Payne, “Reflections,” 4–5.
165For the trip: ELPOH, 69–70; Terry, Missing Pages, 31.
165“The Sterno is: ELP cites the loss of the Sterno in a letter to TG 4/28/1955, ELPLOC B4F1.
166Not a single: Payne, “Reflections,” 6; ELPOH, 67–68.
168The conference achieved: Saturday Review, 5/21/1955, 8.
168Delegates and others: Chapter title in Carl Rowan, The Pitiful and the Proud (New York: Random House, 1956); Powell, Adam on Adam, 118.
168Likewise, Payne was: ELPOH, 74; ChDe, 4/16/1955, 1.
168“This is the hottest”: ChDe, 5/21/1955, 1; ChDe 5/14/1955, 1.
169Only in Germany: ChDe, 7/23/1955, 12.
170Her reporting also: ChDe, 7/16/1955, 12.
171The soiree underlined: ChDe, 3/26/1955, 1.
172But in his column: NYT, 4/28/1955, 14; WaPo, 4/28/1955, 62; LaTi, 4/28/1955, 12; ChDe, 5/7/1955, 1.
172The Hagerty matter: Untitled Manuscript, 6–7, ELPLOC B40F3.
172The optimism Payne: ChDe, 8/20/1955, 4.
173Even the Supreme: ChDe, 6/11/1955, 1.
174The Defender opened: ChDe, 9/10/1955, 1; Davis W. Houck and Matthew A. Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008), 31.
174The two white: Autobiographical notes, ELPMSRC, B1672.
175In Washington, Payne: ChDe, 9/17/1955, 1.
175It had been believed: WaPo, 10/15/1955, 26; Houck and Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press, 135.
Eye on the Struggle Page 40
