Guide to the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History Collection
Sean Heyliger
African American Museum & Library at Oakland
659 14th Street
Oakland, California 94612
Phone: (510) 637-0198
Fax: (510) 637-0204
Email: sheyliger@oaklandlibrary.org
URL: http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/locations/african-american-museum-library-oakland
© 2013
African American Museum & Library at Oakland. All rights reserved.
Guide to the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History Collection
Collection number: MS 192
African American Museum & Library at Oakland
Oakland, California
- Processed by:
- Sean Heyliger
- Date Completed:
- 11/06/2015
- Encoded by:
- Sean Heyliger
© 2013 African American Museum & Library at Oakland. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History collection
Dates: 2001
Collection number: MS 192
Creator:
Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
Collection Size:
1.5 linear feet
(2 boxes)
Repository:
African American Museum & Library at Oakland (Oakland, Calif.)
Abstract: The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History Collection consists of 29 oral history interviews conducted
in 2001 by Earl Caldwell with prominent black journalists that began their careers during the 1960s-1970s. A majority of the
interviewees worked at television stations or newspapers in California or New York and include interview with: Leandra Abbot,
Robert L. Allen, Ed Bradley, Audreen Buffalo, Mary Ellen Butler, Earl Caldwell, Belva Davis, Joy Elliot, Joy Elliot, George
Goodman, Al Harvin, Charles Hobson, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Jane Tillman Irving, Lenore Jenkins-Allen, Jerri Lange, Claude
Lewis, Austin Long Scott, Nancy Hicks Maynard, Marquita Poole-Eckert, Dennis Richmond, Gil Scott, Robert Terrell, Wallace
Terry, Melba Tolliver, Mel Watkins, Hollie West, Ben Williams, and Valena Williams.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Access
No access restrictions. Collection is open to the public.
Access Restrictions
Materials are for use in-library only, non-circulating.
Publication Rights
Permission to publish from the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History Collection must be obtained
from the African American Museum & Library at Oakland.
Preferred Citation
Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History collection, MS 192, African American Museum & Library at
Oakland, Oakland Public Library. Oakland, California.
Processing Information
Processed by Sean Heyliger, 11/06/2015.
Biography / Administrative History
The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History Project began in 1999 with the Caudwell Journals, a
series of personal accounts written by journalist Earl Caldwell on his experiences working as a black journalist. The project
was expanded into an oral history project to document the experiences of other black journalists whose careers started during
the 1960s and 1970s. The project completed a total of 29 oral history interviews with black journalists mostly working in
California and New York and documents their experiences and struggles as journalists. The interviews were conducted in collaboration
with the Freedom First Amendment Center with funding from the John S. and James K. Knight Foundation.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education Oral History Collection consists of 29 oral history interviews conducted
in 2001 by Earl Caldwell with prominent black journalists that began their careers during the 1960s-1970s. A majority of the
interviewees worked at television stations or newspapers in California or New York and include interview with: Leandra Abbot,
Robert L. Allen, Ed Bradley, Audreen Buffalo, Mary Ellen Butler, Earl Caldwell, Belva Davis, Joy Elliot, Joy Elliot, George
Goodman, Al Harvin, Charles Hobson, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Jane Tillman Irving, Lenore Jenkins-Allen, Jerri Lange, Claude
Lewis, Austin Long Scott, Nancy Hicks Maynard, Marquita Poole-Eckert, Dennis Richmond, Gil Scott, Robert Terrell, Wallace
Terry, Melba Tolliver, Mel Watkins, Hollie West, Ben Williams, and Valena Williams.
Arrangement
Series I: oral history videotapes
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
African American journalists -- 20th century -- Biography.
African American journalists -- Interviews.
African American women journalists--Biography.
Oral history interviews
Physical Description: 29 VHS videotapes
Series Scope and Content Summary
Consists of 29 oral history interviews with prominent black journalists about their experiences and struggles working in the
news media in the 1960s-1970s.
Arrangement
Arranged alphabetically by last name of interviewee.
Box 1
Interview with Leandra Abbot
2001
Description
Interview with Leandra Abbot, who in late 1960’s was one of three black women to break the color line at Newsweek magazine.
Box 1
Interview with Robert L. Allen
2003-01-06
Description
Interview with longtime activist, journalist and professor, Robert L. Allen, senior editor of The Black Scholar and co-editor
of Brotherman, the odyssey of Black men in America, discussing growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, his work as a journalist covering
the civil rights and Black power movements in the 1960s, the formation of the Bay Area Black Journalists, COINTELPRO, and
his work as an editor for The Black Scholar.
Box 1
Interview with Ed Bradley
2001
Description
Interview with veteran CBS news reporter Ed Bradley. Prior to joining CBS News he was a reporter for WCBS in New York — joined
CBS in 1971 as stringer, worked his way from radio news to television news. He also covered the Vietnam War and was a longtime
correspondent on the television news program 60 Minutes.
Box 1
Interview with Audreen Buffalo
2001
Description
Interview with Audreen Buffalo, one of the first African American journalists to work at the women’s magazine Redbook and
later worked at Essence magazine and Time, Inc.
Box 1
Interview with Mary Ellen Butler
2001
Description
Interview with Mary Ellen Butler, a reporter and editor for the Oakland Tribune. Before joining the Tribune, she was a reporter
for the Washington Star, the Oakland Post and the Berkeley Daily Gazette. Butler received a Congressional Fellowship from
the American Political Science Association in Washington D.C. where she wrote speeches, press releases and position papers
for Representative Shirley Chisholm and Senator Alan Cranston.
Box 1
Interview with Earl Caldwell
2001-06-07
Description
Interview with investigative journalist Earl Caldwell. Earl Caldwell worked his way up from small newspaper to midsize and
finally to the New York Times and New York Daily News. While covering the Black Panthers for the New York Times, he stood
against the FBI and the Nixon Administration refusing to disclose confidential information about his sources in the Panthers.
The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in the enactment of individual states’ shield laws protecting reporters’
sources. He was the only reporter present when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. He served as director and oral historian
of the Maynard Institute’s oral history project.
Box 1
Interview with Belva Davis
2001
Description
Interview with veteran news anchor and reporter Belva Davis. Belva Davis was hired to replace television news anchor Nancy
Reynolds, on KPIX-TV, San Francisco's CBS affiliate, making her the first female African American television reporter on the
West Coast. Davis hosted and helped to create "All Together Now", one of the country's first prime-time public affairs programs
to focus on ethnic communities. In 1977, she left KPIX to work at the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, KQED. She anchored "A
Closer Look" and then "Evening Edition" from 1977 to 1981, then worked as anchor and urban affairs -specialist for KRON 4.
Box 1
Interview with Joy Elliot
2001
Description
Interview with journalist Joy Elliot, the first black woman to work at a wire service, first at the Associated Press and subsequently
at Reuters where she covered nine assemblies at the UN.
Box 1
Interview with C. Gerald Fraser
2001
Description
Interview with veteran journalist C. Gerald Fraser. He started as a deskman at New York Daily News for four years, covering
metropolitan affairs and the performing and visual arts at the New York Times for twenty-four years. His work at the Times
included columns on books, television, and New York places of interest. He was also a founding member of Black Perspective,
the 60's black journalist organization formed in New York.
Box 1
Interview with George Goodman
2001
Description
Interview with reporter George Goodman, who after getting his start working for the Associated Press during the 1965 Los Angeles
riots went on to work for the Ebony magazine, Look magazine and the New York Times.
Box 1
Interview with Al Harvin
2001
Description
Interview with reporter Al Harvin, who after getting his start working for the Associated Press during the 1965 Los Angeles
riots went on to work for the New York Times for over 25 years.
Box 1
Interview with Charles Hobson
2001
Description
Interview with Charles Hobson, producer of the WNEW’s “Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant," a news magazine highlighting varied aspects
of the neighborhoods black community, Black Journal," "Like it is," a documentary style news magazine, and "The Africans,"
a nine-part series that aired on PBS stations in 1986.
Box 1
Interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault
2001
Description
Interview with Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first African American to work at the New Yorker and a reporter for the McNeil
Lehrer News Hour, CNN, and NPR.
Box 1
Interview with Jane Tillman Irving
2001
Description
Reporter Jane Tillman Irving discusses getting her start working for the school paper at New York City College in the 1960s.
Box 1
Interview with Lenore Jenkins-Allen
2001
Description
Interview with journalist Lenore Jenkins-Allen, a reporter at Newsweek during the 1960s where she interviewed notable figures
such as Roy Wilkins, Mohammed Ali, Pearl Bailey, Vernon Jordan and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Box 1
Interview with Jerri Lange
2001
Description
Interview with journalist Jerri Lange, a popular television personality throughout the Bay Area, who has worked as a television
host for several San Francisco stations including KGO, KQED and KBHK.
Box 1
Interview with Claude Lewis
2001
Description
Interview with sports writer Claude Lewis, a journalist at Newsweek Magazine and a key organizer of black journalists on the
East Coast.
Box 1
Interview with Austin Long Scott
2001
Description
Interview with Austin Long Scott. In 1961, Austin Scott became the first African American full-time reporter hired by The
Associated Press. He was based in Sacramento covering the California Legislature for three years, then in 1964 the Associated
Press moved him to New York City. He covered the Harlem riots that year, and then reported on similar urban uprisings in city
after city over the next five years. By late 1969, as the Associated Press' senior black reporter, he covered most of the
nation's major African American urban uprisings, except for Watts. He also traveled extensively in the South, beginning in
1965, to make periodic assessments of the civil rights movement, of efforts to end hunger, and of other efforts to bring social
change.
Box 1
Interview with Nancy Hicks Maynard
2001
Description
Interview with journalist Nancy Hicks Maynard. In 1967, she started at the Washington Post and was the only black woman covering
news. She moved to on to work at the New York Times where she was the first black woman reporter and covered many civil rights
stories at universities. In 1983, she and her husband, Bob Maynard, purchased the Oakland Tribune, becoming the first Black
owners of a major metropolitan newspaper in the US. They also co-founded the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in
1977 in Oakland, California.
Box 1
Interview with Marquita Poole-Eckert
2001
Description
Interview with broadcast journalist Marquita Poole-Eckert, producer of ABC's “Like It Is” and a senior producer at CBS Sunday
Morning.
Box 1
Interview with Dennis Richmond
2001
Description
Interview with television news anchor Dennis Richmond. Richmond covered San Francisco Bay Area news for KTVU for over 30 years
as a nightly news anchor.
Box 1
Interview with Gil Scott
2001
Description
Interview with reporter Gil Scott, a journalist for the Associated Press and the Christian Science Monitor.
Box 1
Interview with Robert Terrell
2001
Description
Interview with reporter and professor Robert Terrell. Terrell was a reporter for the New York Post during the turbulent black
power movement and later became a professor at California State University East Bay.
Box 1
Interview with Wallace Terry
2001
Description
Interview with author and journalist Wallace Terry. As a student, Terry became the first African American editor-in-chief
of Brown University's Daily Herald. He went on to work at the Washington Post covering the Vietnam War and later wrote the
book, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War (1984), which served as a basis for the 1995 movie Dead Presidents.
Box 1
Interview with Melba Tolliver
2001
Description
Interview with news anchor Melba Tolliver. She was hired as secretary at ABC in news division and was asked to fill in as
a new anchor during a strike at the station becoming the first black woman in US to anchor a network news show.
Box 1
Interview with Mel Watkins
2001
Description
Interview with editor and journalist Mel Watkins. Watkins served as an editor and writer at the New York Times Sunday Book
Review between 1964-1985 and has written extensively on the African American performers and comedy.
Box 2
Interview with Hollie West
2001
Description
Interview with journalist Hollie West. West worked as a reporter at the Oakland Tribune, the Associated Press’ San Francisco
Bureau, and the Washington Post.
Box 2
Interview with Ben Williams
2001
Description
Interview with reporter Ben Williams. He was the first African American reporter at the San Francisco Examiner when he was
hired in 1962. When he was hired in 1966 by KPIX Channel 5, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, he was the first black reporter
to be hired as a television news reporter in the Bay Area.
Box 1
Interview with Valena Williams
2001
Description
Interview with newspaper columnist and broadcast journalist Valena Williams. She worked as a news analyst for WTAM (NBC),
a station manager for KQED, and was a lecturer in journalism at the University of California Berkeley.
