Leadership: The Right to Be Civil Through the Eyes of a Black Journalist

Leadership: The Right to Be Civil Through the Eyes of a Black Journalist

Opinion Column

By Alicia M. Phidd, Esq.

Tampa, Florida, January 20, 2011-The Tampa Bay Black Heritage Festival (TBBHF) for over a decade has carved out ten days of pure unadulterated celebration of Minorities locally and nationally. Every year, the Tampa Bay community looks forward to the two day street festival, its world renowned artists, local sponsors, food and activities. However, the Heritage Festival boasts more than just fun and games. The week and a half long list of activities includes financial education, empowerment, art and movie review, lecture series and health education to name a few.

Civil Rights, female, journalist, 1950’s, Ivy League education and Tampa Bay had one thing in common on January 19, 2011 and that was Dorothy Butler Gilliam. Ms. Gilliam was the keynote speaker at the Heritage Leadership Luncheon, a prominent event for TBBHF. It was more important this year to a small group of us and we are the members of Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists (TBABJ), the local chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

When Ebony T. Grimsley, Secretary of TBABJ brought the suggestion for the group to attend it was a unanimous vote and the group secured a table at the event to hear this legend in the field of journalism.

Ms. Gilliam joined the Washington Post in 1961 during the height of the Civil Rights movement. She was their first Black female reporter with a long list of accolades to follow her through her life until retirement in 2003. Ms. Gilliam’s career is impressive which include working at Tuskegee Institute and Jet Magazine.

However, I was most impressed not just with her career but with the oral history she shared about the tenacity of a young Black person during the time when Black life was not worth a dollar and a Black woman life was worth even less. Ms. Gilliam resting comfortably in her slender frame was a fighter, visionary and had a larger than life determination to succeed. She demonstrated it when she told of a sua sponte decision to go to Little Rock, Arkansas to cover the nine African American students' journey in integrating Little Rock Central High School in 1957. This time the story was not told from the perspective of just the racial tension and animosity during those times. It was told through the eye of a young woman who although she was educated from Lincoln University, because she was an African American, she could not wear a press badge boldly. She told of the cramped living conditions the journalist endured at the risk at being lynched. She watched her boss get pummeled by humans and the system and she decided the story had to be told and she would join the other Black journalists in telling it, do or die. She did… that I, a blogger, attorney and an educator, can now reap the benefit of hearing for myself what it means to be committed to your craft in spite of, despite of and without excuses. A Heritage Leadership Luncheon indeed!

It was an interesting story and so I leave you with this question? When was the last time you took the initiative to evaluate your career, community efforts, familial situation and think out of the box for the benefit of the next generation? What’s Your Cause?™