The Day “negro” Got Its Capital “N”
Some black history calendars note that yesterday signified a milestone in the annals of journalism and race: They say it was when the New York Times announced that the word “Negro” would be capitalized. Times records show that the date was actually March 7, not June 7, 1930, but either way, this year marks the 75th anniversary of the development.
The back story, from David Levering Lewis‘ 2000 biography, “W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963,” on the legendary scholar, activist and journalist:
“As recently as November 1925, the New York Times had once again rejected [Du Bois’] plea to capitalize Negro. Denial of upper-case existence in the newspaper of record merely affirmed symbolically the literal denial of the humanity of an entire race — token diminution that both reflected and sustained the cruelest beliefs and actions in the real world. The policy of the Times suited an era in which thirty-four ?negroes? were to be lynched in 1926.”
The Times’ 1930 editorial:
“‘NEGRO’ WITH A CAPITAL ‘N’
“The tendency in typography is generally toward a lessened use of capital letters. Yet reverence for things held sacred by many, a regard for the fundamental law of the land, a respect for the offices of men in high authority, and certain popular and social traditions have resisted this tendency. Races have their capitalized distinction, as have nationalities, sects and cults, tribes and clans. It therefore seems reasonable that a people who had once a proud designation, such as Ethiopians, reaching back into the dawn of history, having come up out of the slavery to which men of English speech subjected them, should now have such recognition as the lifting of the name from the lower case into the upper can give them. Major ROBERT R. MOTON of Tuskegee, the foremost representative of the race in America, has written to THE TIMES that his people universally wish to see the word ‘Negro’ capitalized. It is a little thing mechanically to grant, but it is not a small thing in its implications. Every use of the capital ‘N’ becomes a tribute to millions who have risen from a low estate into “the brotherhood of the races.”
“THE NEW YORK TIMES now joins many of the leading Southern newspapers as well as most of the Northern in according this recognition. In our ?style book” “Negro” is now added to the list of words to be capitalized. It is not merely a typographical change; it is an act in recognition of racial self-respect for those who have been for generations in “the lower case.””
The battle for dignity in newspaper pages follows that in American society, of course. In “The Trust,” their 1999 book on the Times, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones note that ?although photographs of blacks occasionally appeared, they were carefully chosen to avoid any suggestion of social integration, especially anything hinting at interracial sex. Sometimes black wedding announcements ran without photographs and with no indication of race, but it wasn’t until 1954 . . . that the Times was emboldened to publish its first picture of a black couple on the society pages. The bride was a former head of the student government at Radcliffe, the groom was a surgeon, and the marriage had taken place in the chancery of St. Thomas’ Church, an Episcopal venue favored by Manhattan’s upper crust . . . The couple was light-skinned and no readers even took note of it.”
By the late 1960s, the Black Power movement had arrived and the word “Negro” had gone out of favor (though a few papers, like the Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Miss., had only then begun to capitalize Negro). It took black reporters to let management know that the mood had changed, and the process wasn?t always pretty.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, then a Times reporter, recalled for Journal-isms via e-mail:
“I had written an article out of Chicago and had used black throughout. I dictated the piece over the phone from Chicago and then flew to NY. When I arrived and got the paper the next morning, the editor had alternated Negro with black throughout.
“I was so upset that I dictated what I think was about an 11 page memo about the matter that ended up as a comment about presumptions whites make about blacks and how that affected perceptions and coverage. . . . it caused quite a stir and Gene Roberts was particularly upset because I didn?t take the matter up with him directly, since he was the national editor. But the way in which I dictated it was the way stories were dictated, so it went to about 11 editors, if I recall. And I told Gene that while I regarded him as a sensitive editor and respected him highly, I filed the memo so that it would go beyond him and reach all the editors involved. If I had spoken only to him, my concerns might have had an impact on the national desk, but I was looking for a broader impact. Abe Rosenthal got it and it was he who made the policy change.? Rosenthal was managing editor, then executive editor.
“My reason for the change was that it was reflecting a widespread sentiment in the black community and that I believed black people, rather than others, should determine what they wanted to be called.”
Today, many in the black press insist that “black,” and sometimes “white,” should be capitalized, but there is no consensus outside the black press and mainstream newspapers have resisted. (A notable exception is the Arizona Republic, which announced its change in 1998 amid criticism for firing 60 employees, including a board member of the National Association of Black Journalists). Similarly, there is no consensus on the use of “African American.”
The battle may still be for “racial self-respect,” as the Times said in 1930, but it is additionally over what form that respect should take.
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Stations Had Just Arrest Footage of Late Educator
“Upset by the television news coverage of the death of educator Donald McClure, East Side community and church leaders say they’re forming a citizens committee that will monitor diversity and cultural sensitivity in local newsrooms,” Laura Jesse reported Saturday in the San Antonio Express-News.
“Friday’s announcement by leaders with the Community of Churches for Social Action follows a public outcry over the broadcast coverage of McClure’s death May 28.
“McClure was a lifelong East Side resident, educator and community leader, but the 5 p.m. newscasts of KENS and KSAT focused on his single brush with the law. McClure pleaded no contest to misdemeanor criminal charges in 2003 and received deferred adjudication, a type of probation.
“Both newscasts showed stock video of McClure being arrested following a state probe into public corruption in 2002.
“The black community felt ‘shock and anger at such a negative portrayal of an icon, especially at the time of his death,’ said the Rev. Thurman Walker, CCSA’s chairman and pastor at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, where McClure’s family worships.
“Walker said he was told by the management at both stations that they did not have any other footage of McClure. He called that a problem in and of itself because of McClure’s long history of contributions to the community.
“KENS News Director Kurt Davis welcomed the panel, which he compared to an external editorial advisory board.”
- McClure freed kids to succeed, dream (Kathy Clay-Little, San Antonio Express-News)
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Poll: 45 Percent Prefer Ethnic Media to Mainstream
?Forty-five percent of all African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American and Arab American adults prefer ethnic television, radio or newspapers to their mainstream counterparts,? according to New California Media, a Bay Area organization founded by the nonprofit Pacific News Service to promote ethnic media.
“These ‘primary consumers’ also indicated that they access ethnic media frequently. This means that a staggering 29 million adults (45 percent of the 64 million ethnic adults studied), or a full 13 percent of the entire adult population of the United States, prefer ethnic media to mainstream television, radio or newspapers. More than half of all Hispanic adults are primary consumers of ethnic media. Approximately two-fifths of African Americans and Arab Americans and a fourth of Asian Americans and Native Americans prefer ethnic media to mainstream media,” its report, released Tuesday, said.
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Michael Jackson Trial Blog Popular on BET.com
“Like dispossessed gypsies flocking to their homeland, Michael Jackson fans have trekked from across the globe to this far-flung Santa Barbara suburb since February. But make no mistake — this is no nation the UN would recognize,” begins a blog datelined Santa Maria, Calif., today on BET.com.
“Call it the ‘United Republics of Michael.’ It?s an imaginary kingdom consisting mostly of devoted fans that have spent thousands of dollars to show their support for the King of Pop during his historic alleged child molestation trial.”
The writer is Bruce Britt, 47, former pop music editor for the Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Daily News. With his sister, Washington Post columnist Donna Britt, he grew up in Gary, Ind., just blocks from the Jackson Five. His blog covering the Jackson trial is BET.com’s first use of the format, according to Retha Hill, the site’s vice president of content, and “the hottest forum for discussing the Jackson trial,” according to managing editor Ed Wiley III.
“Since its early May launch, the site has evolved into several things,” Britt told Journal-isms.
“1. A meditation on fame and the damage done. I have interviewed child actor Gary Coleman, Jackson family spokesperson Dr. Firpo Carr and others about fame and . . . its devastating effects. It?s a timely topic since many urban kids view fame as their ticket out of the ghetto. These kids don?t consider the toll fame has exacted on Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Lil? Kim, The Game, Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, C-Murder, MC Hammer and countless others.
“2. We also wanted to try and get a peek inside the mind of . . . Michael Jackson. We?ve asked a lot of interesting rhetorical questions. Does Michael have a messiah complex? Is he so obsessed with the notion of innocence that he was willing to surgically transform himself into something androgynous and otherworldly?
“For all intents and purposes, the blog is similar to being a newspaper beat reporter ? it requires constant work and diligence, but it?s a lot of fun. Fan response here in Santa Maria has been incredible. They take a[n] extremely dim view of the media, but they consider BET to be the source for fair, balanced and interesting reporting regarding MJ and the trial. As you can imagine, that makes all of us very proud.”
- CNN overdid Jackson trial coverage, its president says (Gail Shister, Philadelphia Inquirer)
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AAJA Prez Holds Shock Jocks Culpable, Not Chi?en
?Last month Arthur Chi’en was fired from WCBS-TV in New York for uttering a four-letter word on air,? Esther Wu, national president of the Asian American Journalists Association, writes on the AAJA Web site. ?But the people who should be punished are disc jockeys Opie and Anthony.?
“. . . Perhaps in an attempt to mock a profession in which they’ve failed, Opie and Anthony have made it their mission to torment professional journalists.
“. . . Last month, Mr. Chi’en got caught in their [followers’] fire. They provoked him as he reported a story about the city’s Metro Card in Midtown Manhattan. The cameras caught two men who taunted Mr. Chi’en, making obscene gestures and holding signs promoting the Opie and Anthony show. Mr.Chi’en remained composed through his live shot. But when he thought he was off camera, Mr. Chi’en turned to the men and asked what they thought they were doing — using one of the expletives they had been shouting at him the entire time.”
Chi’en was fired. “As it stands, everyone loses — Mr. Chi’en, the station, the viewers.
“Everyone, that is, except the two men who provoked Mr. Chi’en on that May morning,” Wu wrote.
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Black Issues, QBR Book Reviews to Combine
Black Issues Book Review, a 6-year-old offshoot of Black Issues in Higher Education that claims a circulation of 41,000, and QBR The Black Book Review, which began in 1993 and claims 11,000, are combining.
The two announced that the magazine will bear both names and be published by Black Issues, while QBR The Black Book Review “will concentrate on indoor and outdoor literary events, specifically the well-known Harlem Book Fairs, which will expand to 12 cities,” including Boston, Buffalo and Phoenix, in the coming year.
“It was time, to be quite frank,” QBR Publisher Max Rodriguez told Journal-isms yesterday. “I found myself running two businesses, the magazine and the book fairs,” which have expanded over the last few years. He quoted C-SPAN as saying that last year’s New York fair drew 323 exhibitors and 40,000 attendees.
QBR, now a subscription-only publication, claims to be “the first book review exclusively dedicated to books about the Africana experience.”
Black Issues Book Review Publisher William E. Cox said in a statement, “Because there is now a strong single marketing force for black books and authors, the longevity of African American readers as a market is secured. Working together both companies will grow, and the market for black books can grow even more.”
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Columnist?s Readers Say Vicente Fox Spoke Truth
“My May 25 column on Vicente Fox‘s controversial statement about black workers received a record number of e-mail messages and phone calls from readers— more than 70,” business columnist Tannette Johnson-Elie wrote Tuesday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Readers agreed with me 5-to-1 that Mexican President Vicente Fox spoke the truth when he said in May that Mexican immigrants ‘are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States.’
“That column touched a nerve — a raw nerve.”
- Brown Like Us (Jelani Cobb, AOL BlackVoices)
- Fox: His poor people are better than our poor people (Jerry Large, Seattle Times)
- Jackson let Fox off hook too easy for racist remark (Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times)
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June 15 Deadline for Nominating J-Educator
The National Conference of Editorial Writers annually grants a Barry Bingham Sr. Fellowship?actually an award?”in recognition of an educator’s outstanding efforts to encourage minority students in the field of journalism.” The educator should be at the college or university level.
Since 2000, an honorarium of $1,000 has been awarded to the recipient, to be used to “further work in progress or begin a new project.”
Past winners include James Hawkins of Florida A&M University (1990); Larry Kaggwa of Howard University (1992); Ben Holman of the University of Maryland (1996); Linda Jones, Roosevelt University, Chicago (1998); Ramon Chavez, University of Colorado, Boulder (1999); Erna Smith of San Francisco State (2000); Joseph Selden of Penn State (2001); Cheryl Smith; Paul Quinn College (2002); Rose Richard, Marquette University (2003) and Leara D. Rhodes of the University of Georgia (2004).
The nomination consists of a statement about why a nominee is deserving. Deadline: June 15.
The final selection will be made by the NCEW Foundation board and will be announced in time for this year’s NCEW convention in Portland, Ore., Sept. 14-17, when the presentation will be made.
Nominations may be e-mailed to Vanessa Gallman, editorial page editor, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, vgallman@herald-leader.com, or faxed to her at (859) 231-3332.
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Short Takes:
- “Ronald De Souza, a television reporter who was quickly becoming the face of Broward County news for many Spanish speakers, died Monday at his home in Doral. He was 41,” Jerry Berrios, referencing Florida locations, reported in the Miami Herald. “De Souza, known for his passion for his native Venezuela and its roller-coaster-like politics, had worked at Miami-based WLTV-Univisió®??23, the top-rated news show in the market, since 1994.”
- Shirley Washington, weekend anchor and reporter at KDFW-TV, the Fox owned-and-operated station in Dallas, left the station May 25, a station spokeswoman confirmed today, after four or five years that included co-anchoring the morning show “Good Day Dallas.”
- Paula Madison, president and general manager of KNBC-TV Los Angeles, is in New York this week for a reunion of Vassar alumni (she?s president of the alumni association); to receive honors from the Abyssinian Development Corp. in Harlem; to meet with others on Vassar?s presidential search committee and for other matters, leading to Internet speculation that she is actually in New York because she is being considered as a successor to Neal Shapiro as president of NBC News.
- “The Agronomist,” the movie tribute to assassinated Haitian radio journalist Jean Leopold Dominique, went on sale in DVD format yesterday, Todd Steven Burroughs wrote on The Black World Today’s Web site. He began his story, ?Radio, when used correctly, can get you killed.?
- “Riz Khan, the Atlanta, USA-based former BBC and CNN journalist, is all set to join Al Jazeera International, the 24-hour English news and current affairs channel that is set to go live in early 2006,” reports the India-based Web site rediff.com.
- Len Burnett is becoming group publisher of Vibe and Vibe Vixen magazines, Stephanie D. Smith reported Monday in Mediaweek. Burnett was a part of Vibe’s founding staff, and had been group publisher of Vanguarde, which published Honey and Savoy magazines, until the company went out of business in late 2003.
- Radio One executive vice president Scott Royster confirmed talk of a deal with Infinity Broadcasting, a Viacom division, that would have given Infinity an equity stake in Radio One ” mirroring an arrangement Infinity recently established with Spanish Broadcasting System, Radio & Records reported Monday, but Royster said that “ultimately we decided that it wasn’t good to our portfolio.” Radio One is the largest black-owned radio network.
- “The Illinois Senate has jumped into the fray between on-air staffers at WSNS-Channel 44 and bosses of the NBC/ Telemundo-owned Spanish-language station. A resolution passed by the Senate in late May calls on the company to ‘negotiate in good faith’ with the station’s anchors and reporters, who are represented by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists,” Robert Feder reported today in the Chicago Sun-Times. “Little progress has been reported after nearly two years of talks.”
- Stephen C. Miller, assistant to the technology editor of the New York Times, was elected secretary of Investigative Reporters and Editors at the group’s annual conference Saturday in Denver.
- Cassandra Clayton, who was a Washington correspondent for NBC News from 1994 to 2001 and earlier served as an NBC News correspondent in New York and Chicago, will be the new director of the Capital News Service television program at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, the university announced on Monday.
- Nearly one year after a journalist was imprisoned for his work, the Senegalese government has failed to implement promised legal reforms, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported Monday. In “Freedom –With Limits,” CPJ ?looks at journalists’ uphill struggle to end criminal sanctions for press offenses and other repressive legal provisions, notably Article 80 of the Penal Code.?
- Yun Jun Cao, a Chinese pediatrician who allegedly was persecuted by her government for revealing government-sponsored infanticide to a reporter, was improperly denied asylum by a U.S. administrative judge, a federal appellate court ruled last month, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
- R.L. Stockard, 80, was the subject of a profile Tuesday in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He was “the first black sportswriter at the Tallahassee Democrat, then the Baton Rouge State-Times and finally the New Orleans States-Item, covering black colleges and high schools during those segregated times. He also was the first sports information director at Southern and later did two stints as the media relations director for the SWAC [Southwestern Athletic Conference]. Plus, Stockard was a sports columnist for the Baton Rouge News-Leader and Louisiana Weekly in New Orleans, the last stint lasting 19 years before ending in 1995. He still occasionally contributes to Black Collegian magazine.”
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