Raising Her Voice by Rodger Streitmatter

Author:Rodger Streitmatter [Streitmatter, Rodger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, History, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, American, African American & Black Studies
ISBN: 9780813181417
Google: XAQaEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2021-09-15T00:47:25+00:00

10

ETHEL L. PAYNE

Agent for Change in the Civil Rights Movement

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court uttered six words that transformed race relations in this country: “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The unanimous decision in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka stunned southern whites and spurred black America to challenge the unjust laws that had confined them to second-class citizenship. African Americans galvanized as never before, prompting a series of events across the South that formed the modern civil rights movement. News coverage of the movement has been praised as creating one of the shining moments in the history of the American media because northern reporters went into the South and transformed these events into front-page news all across the country, shoving the realities of southern segregation into the faces of the American people. As one analyst wrote: “It was a brilliant period in the history of the American press.”1

Ethel L. Payne deserves a share of that praise. A fearless reporter for a leading black newspaper, Payne may have covered—and participated in—more events in the movement than any other journalist. She reported the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 and desegregation efforts at the University of Alabama the same year and at Little Rock Central High School a year later. She demonstrated in Birmingham in 1963, and, when 250,000 activists marched on Washington later that year, Payne was among them as well. In 1965 when 15,000 activists marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand voting rights, Payne was there. During the same period, she traced the legislative, executive, and judicial decisions that revolutionized public policy toward blacks.

Payne, who never married, became Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Defender just as civil rights was gaining momentum.2 Indeed, Payne added to that momentum by challenging President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the administration’s lack of initiative on integration—and feeling his wrath because of her boldness. The uncompromising Payne never apologized for irritating Eisenhower. She said: “There were very few rebels. The privilege of being a White House correspondent—wasn’t that enough? Why couldn’t I be quiet and not stir up things? Well, I didn’t think that was my purpose. If you have lived through the black experience in this country, you feel that every day you’re assaulted by the system. You are either acquiescent, which I think is wrong, or else you just rebel, and you kick against it. I wanted to constantly, constantly, constantly hammer away, raise the questions that needed to be raised.”3

By 1954, Payne had established herself as a tough reporter and powerful writer. The Capital Press Club named her its “Newsman’s Newsman,” the Washington reporter who best exemplified high journalistic standards,4 and the Washington press corps came to know her as the “First Lady of the Black Press.” But Payne did not always behave in a manner consistent with many people’s concept of a “lady.” She said: “I admit it. I was obnoxious, stubborn, absolutely impossible to work with, impervious to all suggestions as to how to behave with civility.

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