Trailblazers

Sanctuary celebrates Women’s History Month with a pioneering journalist and passionate civil rights advocate whose fearlessness and persistence broke down many barriers for women in her field, particularly women of color.

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Ethel L. Payne
​(1911-1991)
© Library of Congress

Known as the “First Lady of the Black Press,” Ethel Lois Payne was born on August 14, 1911 to William A. Payne and Bessie Austin Payne on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. Her grandparents on her father’s side were enslaved until the end of the Civil War. She got her start in 1951 as a reporter for the Chicago Defense. When she moved to Washington, D.C., she covered the Civil Rights Movement, pressuring Eisenhower to desegregate interstate travel. She witnessed President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1972, she became the first Black female commentator employed by a major network (CBS).

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Some interesting facts...

• Ethel got her start in journalism in the 1940s while working as a hostess at an American military social club in Japan. She kept a journal about the segregated military quarters which got noticed by a reporter from the Chicago Defender.
• Ethel was the first African American woman to join the White House press corps.
• She was the first African American woman to cover the war in Vietnam.
• She conducted interviews with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator John F. Kennedy.
• She interviewed and advocated for the release of Nelson Mandela.
• She wrote passionately about the adoption crises for African American children and the struggles unwed mothers faced. 
• She covered the “Montgomery Bus Boycott” and the “March on Washington.”
• Her many honors included an award from the Capital Press Club in 1967 for her reporting during the Vietnam War and the TransAfrica African Freedom Award in 1987. 

Ethel with Soldiers (Japan circa 1940s)
Photo Credit: The Wall Street Journal

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