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BAM!

Thank you so much for being here.

This is one of those stories that genuinely hit me so hard because it feels like you have

lived through some of the most seminal moments in American history and you were also reporting

on it.

You worked for 50 years in this business.

What do you think was the biggest change that you saw in your time in journalism as the

first African American woman working at the Washington Post?

I think the biggest change was after the urban uprisings of the 60s, when the Colonel

Commission, which was a commission that was named by the president, said the media had,

in many ways, contributed to the fact that the urban riots occurred.

But that was because they had not integrated their reporting and the editing staffs.

In many ways, they said they were just showing us America only through white eyes.

So I started at the post in 1961 when I went back in 1972.

It was a little different because there were more reporters of color, more females, but

still it was very quite male dominated.

You came into this world at a time when it was just something that did not happen.

You walked into a newsroom where there were only two other reporters who were black.

You were the first African American woman in this space.

Reading in the book, there's one of the, I mean, just the most harrowing passages where

they had a policy of not reporting when black people were murdered.

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