Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s Eulogy for Ed Bradley
Text of the eulogy for CBS newsman Ed Bradley delivered Nov. 21 at Riverside Church in New York by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, veteran journalist and longtime friend:
If you have listened well to the words of all of Ed’s colleagues, family and friends, you will know why Patricia chose India.Arie’s “Complicated Melody” as the personification of Ed. He was a “complicated melody,” as complex as any of the jazz tunes he loved, which you had to appreciate if you planned to run the distance with Edward R. Bradley, Jr., a.k.a. Butch, Moon and Teddy Badley.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, speaking at Ed Bradley’s memorial service in New York’s Riverside Church, urged celebrants to ‘remind ourselves of what is best in our profession and what is best in ourselves.” (Credit: CBS News)
It would help you get in touch with all the things that made us love him so—not least his passion for all kinds of music, the arts, poetry, basketball, Armani suits, Charvet shirts and Cohiba Esplendidos, and like that. But to understand Ed, you had to know that his passion was a gift—the first layer of armor crafted by his mother, Gladys, whom he adored.
Ed’s remarkable capacity to listen was also part of the armor crafted by his father. It was no conceit for the camera, for early on, Butch figured out the best way to engage his father, a man of few words, was to plan conversations in advance and prepare multiple follow-up questions.
Ron and I first encountered Ed’s passion, back in the day, when Ed had just gotten his big toe in the door of journalism—with the kind of ingenuity that should be enshrined in journalism textbooks. By chance, he was visiting New York from Philadelphia and learned about an opening at CBS Radio.
When he discovered he needed not just passion but an audition tape, he quickly grabbed a newspaper, scanned the stories and reached out for the nearest headliner. Though he sat waiting for a while, eventually he got an interview with H. Carl McCall and the rest, as they say, is history—but history that needs to be told, if only in brief. For Ed Bradley came onto the scene in one of the most exciting times in American history, and he embraced with a vengeance what Oliver Wendell Holmes called “the action and passion of his times.” It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and the first flowering of Our New Day, when Lorraine Hansberry gave us the words, Nina Simone put them to music and we took them to heart: Yes, we were young, gifted and black, our souls intact. That was where it was at.
Ed was among the handful of us who represented the first wave of black journalists entering mainstream media, and he carried that not as a burden but as a badge, which he wore unapologetically, without standing on a soapbox, but by insisting that even as he entered, he had a responsibility to bring along the people who looked like him, in ways that were recognizable to themselves.
But, as the song goes:
If he were a car
He’d be a long stretch limousine
With room
For all of humanity inside.
And Ed took them, all of humanity, to his bosom—the Africans call it ubuntu —kings and presidents, volunteer firemen and shoeshine boys and the motley crew of friends like us (and sometimes not like us), carrying us all wherever he went, all over the world, even when some may have remained in their living rooms.
Like when he went off to live in Paris, where he was not really down and out, but on the edge, keeping us posted as he discovered things about himself that led him to realize that he might answer the call of Ernest Hemingway, but as a war correspondent, not as a novelist.
The song says: He ain’t the reason for the sun and the moon
True, but Ed believed that he was doing God’s work, which is why R-E-S-P-E-C-T was more than just the Aretha tune he loved, but the credo he lived by. Why vixen and villain alike trusted him to treat them with respect, even though it sometimes came wrapped in a tough question.
Now the song also goes: If he were an animal, he’d be an ass cause he’s so stubborn sometime . . .
Well, we all knew that Ed was all that, and also could be fastidious to a fault. But that was part of what was endearing about Ed. He owned up to his faults—well, sometimes. He DID look IN the mirror, but he also held up a mirror to himself. And, he was man enough to cry when he hurt.
The song says:
. . . he is so giving
And
he is so wise . . .
Which is why, though he had no children of his own, he owned the children of his friends, giving them gifts on every one of their special occasions, but to paraphrase Nadine Gordimer, Ed gave them things that couldn’t be gift-wrapped.
The song says:
If he were a building
He’d be a beautiful
cathedral
Cause he’s so traditionally spiritual
Which is what we saw in stark relief as he fought to overcome his latest medical challenges.
“One more river to cross” was what he said when I first approached his bedside during his struggle to hold on.
And thus it was Ed, himself, who got us through the worst of times.
Finally, Ed’s own strength was magnified to an incalculable degree by having Patricia at his side. From the first few days after he met her, when she traveled with him to the funeral of his beloved mother, a vision of both grace and beauty, not just from without but from within, we knew she would travel his best and worst miles with him. She was his lover, his friend, his night nurse and daytime guardian angel, paying meticulous detail to every pill ordered or given, every shot administered, every bandage changed, recognizing even when no one else did, a cry for help that did, in fact, once save his life. In this last round, Patricia pressed Mother, Mother Michele and Sister Natacha into long shifts so that Ed would not, even for a minute, be alone.
The hope Patricia inspired was fueled when, after hours of sleep, eyes tightly shut, Ed heard some story about the Knicks on the TV above his bed. I happened to look over at him at that moment, only to see those long-shut eyelids open slowly, fixing on that screen, an ever-so-faint smile gracing his face. I knew then that Ed was fighting as hard as he could to stay in touch with the things he loved. He did not go gentle into that good night; he raged, raged against the dying of the light. But there came a time when Ed seemed to know it was time, when he may have even been hearing in his head that tune “St. James Infirmary.” Only he wasn’t asking Death to “Let my baby go,” but instead, Ed turned that tune on its head and told Patricia, as only Ed could, to “Let me go.”
Ed had found his peace at last and wanted Patricia to be at peace with it.
And so, how do we honor Ed’s gargantuan legacy? I would hope we take this time to pause from the often-hectic pace of our lives to think about how hard Ed worked, especially during these last months of his life, turning out a record number of “60 Minutes” pieces, despite the illness that was killing him quietly but not so softly. I would hope we would take the time to remind ourselves of what is best in our profession and what is best in ourselves. Ed embraces the beliefs of CBS’s other Ed, that television was an instrument that could teach, that could illuminate, that could inspire.
Ed Bradley believed that, as did Ed Murrow, and was often unhappy with the direction he saw his profession taking in recent years. Despite the call from other quarters, he stayed at “60 Minutes” because he believed that it would remain true to Murrow’s ideals and to his—to produce news as public service, when it exposed truths hard to swallow about ourselves or when, on occasion, and in its place, it entertained.
Of the many Internet messages that have been posted and e-mails that have come to the house, one of the most hopeful came from a young Black British reporter: If Ed Bradley can make it from the streets of Philadelphia to “60 Minutes,” he wrote, then we have no excuses.
The path Ed lit must not go dark on the generation that idolized him and hopes to follow in his footsteps. To them, I say, if you want to follow in Ed’s footsteps, you can’t sit behind a desk and look good, you’ve got to put on your traveling shoes and walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Let us all—journalists, friends, family and those who didn’t know him but loved or respected him, honor him—and keep his legacy alive by living it, finding ways to guarantee its immortality.