Selfcleaning board. I want to give a special like you to our sponsors who have been generous in their support this evening. Excuse me, especially when thrust is our [inaudible] todays program will be broadcast live on the spin to book tv and if theres time at the end for a q a session with the author we ask you to use the microphone located at the center of the room so the home viewing audience can hear your questions. For we begin todays program we ask you to silence your cell phones and turn off the camera flashes. Im here to introduce you to here to introduce our guest is [inaudible], reporter and columnist for the chicago suntimes, president of the chicago chapter of the National Association of black journalists and president of the chicago journalist association. Please welcome [inaudible] of the chicago suntimes. Thank you back. [applause] good morning. Thank you all for being here today. For joining us for what promises to be an inspiring and intriguing conversation. As a columnist at a major chicago newspaper and as president of the National Association of black journalists chicago chapter i owe my career to Dorothy Butler gilliam. Author of trailblazer, pioneering journalist fighting to make the media look more like america. Yes, i owe my career to Dorothy Butler gilliam and two pioneers such as sheet. Those who endured the struggle of being the first. Those who endured the struggles associated with breaking down racial barriers. Dorothy Butler Gilliam was only 23 when hired at the Washington Post. Twentythree. The year was 1961, a time of civil unrest in the battle for racial equality. She would be the first africanamerican woman reporter ever to be hired by the iconic newspaper but in the post, prestigious hall miss gilliam was ignored, dismissed by most of her weight colleagues. They were not even speak to her. Taxis would not stop for her but a black doorman did stop for her and when she arrived in an upscale Apartment Building to interview a white resident he informed her the maids entrance is around the back. The post would not even, at the time, cover deaths in the black community. Cheap deaths one editor called them, unworthy of attention. Through it all miss gilliam persisted and not seen the highs and lows of the story career a 50 year as an awardwinning journalist, editor, columnist and author. As well as, feminist, civil rights activists, mentor to scores of young minority journalists who sought to follow in her footsteps aided directly by miss gilliam in achieving their journalism education. Miss gilliam who gone on to earn a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University later established the Young Journalists Development project. This helps to provide professional training among other support to a Younger Generation of journalists. She also founded prime movers media, a Mentorship Program connecting awardwinning journalist with Disadvantaged High School Students who were aspiring to journalism careers. If you thought 23 was young miss gilliam actually began her journalism career at age 17. As a reporter for the black press in the segregated south in the 1950s. Born november 24, 1936 in memphis, tennessee miss gilliams parents, addie and jesse may butler had ten children and only five of whom survived. She was working as a secretary at the louisville defender when one day the Society Editor got sick and she was asked to fill in. The rest is history. That beat exposed a teenager from the projects to a world of high society and enlarging her dream. She would distinguish herself on reporting the integration of schools of little rock, arkansas and then go on to work as an associate editor at the iconic jet magazine in ebony right here in chicago during college. Before joining the post where she worked for more than 30 years before retiring in 2003. Ms. Gilliam overcame racism and sexism to become a successful columnist whose popular metro column often focused on issues of equity in education, politics and race. By the time she, like many back journalist, became an advocate and activist for a compliment, her dedication in her commitment to affecting societal change and to extend a hand to those coming behind her and taking her to the presidency of the formidable National Association of black journalists. Its an organization that the leadership of pioneers like ms. Gilliam continues today to advocate for diversity in our nations newsrooms a fair, equitable coverage of communities of color so that all sides of the stories are shared. She is known for [inaudible]. It trailblazer, author of the 1976 biography, Paul Roberson allamerican has given us a beautifully written memoir on turbulent decades of america struggle with race and equity and civil rights. On one individual struggle to overcome and achieve as both an africanamerican and Woman Working in Mainstream Media. An opportunity which might generation admittedly takes for granted. We are in for a treat, not the least reason of which is with our author is interviewed by public radio wb easy, anger and host, jennifer white. She is host of the live morning talk show in the warning shift. When ms. White took over the host chair in january from 30 year veteran tony israel smith managing director for programming and Audience Development said the morning shift is vital to Chicago Daily news conversation and to fostering thoughtful Public Discourse that connects chicago to each other and the most important issues and ideas in our region. Her ability to ask the right question at the right moment and her passion for the region come through each time she sets behind the microphone. A typical week on [inaudible] can find her broadcasting live from the winchester arena the historic inauguration circles first africanamerican woman mayor, laurie lightfoot. The next day covering the new exhibit at the Art Institute of chicago there was an overview artist greg borowitz, 30 year plus career in the ongoing aids crisis. That next day hard to bring the legislative session fighting down and sprinkled talking former chicago mayor Rahm Emanuels new gig. Then highlighting an organization that offers jobs and other support services to other men at high risk for gun violence in chicago. Shes dynamic, charismatic, committed. A better match for conversation this morning you could not find. Ladies and gentlemen, dorothy gilliam, author of trailblazer, pioneering journalist fight to make the media look more like america in conversation with msb easy radio. [applause] thank you for that introduction. I feel like i at least can pack up and go home now. Amazing. I noticed your reaction when she said my career is because of dorothy gilliam. You had a visceral reaction but i know so many journalists who would say exactly the same thing. When you hear black journalists, black women journalists say that how does that make you feel . Its a very unsettling feeling because sometimes i wonder what theyre talking about but you know, when you are engaged in doing what youre doing and going through what you are going through in the time period in which you live you dont feel like a trailblazer but i think it was ingrained in us and in my generation by my family and church and community that we had to we were not just pushing the door open for ourselves but we were pushing it open for other people to follow. I remember many years later at the post one of the things a lot of the white editors could not understand you are here so why are you worried about what comes behind you and its a different cultural upbringing and a different family upbringing that makes us know that we go through hard times and difficult times that its not just for us. I made be one but there are a thousand behind me. I want to take a second to look back at your formative years in louisville. Your father was a minister so how did your relationship with your parents shape the way you thought about what was possible for yourself . That relationship was very important to me. For example, my father would tell us my father as a minister in the african methodist visible church would tell us there is no such word as cant. The whole sense that you could do anything, the impossible might take longer but you would make it and you could do it. I think so much of my later experience also came from that black religious experience where there was a sense that no matter what the Washington Post might or someone in the Washington Post might have done and im not saying everybody was horrendous but im talking about my experience in early 1960s but no matter what happened when someone refused to speak to you when i saw you on the street the matter how humiliated you might feel you were also a child of god and bigger then what the world thought of you. Those kinds of messages early on that werent always comfortable to hear but i think the affirming that i got from my family from my dad and mother differently from a Larger Community was very important. I remember when i first wrote my first article for the louisville defender and i did not go to be a reporter but when there is a secretary to help get myself through college. But when i got so many affirmations from my church and the people that we saw your article and that was good. Youll be all right. Those are the messages i think that gave me strength when the doorman thought i was the maid and needed to go to the main entrance and when the editor had turned around and said well, we dont cover black murders because their cheap deaths. All those things they werent easy to take at that point but i knew that if i stomped out of the newsroom that was going to make it harder for the next one. So i persevered. Specifically around the way, the way you think about practice and when i was reading a book and understanding that you grew up in segregated america and there were lots of overt and ways in which blackness was contrived to be less than. How did your parents in Church Committee offset that message that you were less than because you are black . I think they often did it by telling me stories of people who had transcended those negative connotations of those negative messages. They shared with us, for example, bishop in the amd church and that was the top and over several districts. The bishop of the episcopal my dad was a minister and they had told him to go to louisville and build a church. His job was to build a church and thats what he did. But when you saw those examples around you and thought and knew many of the people who threw rocks at you were not building churches than many of the people who said negative things about you or excluded you were not doing that and so a lot of the messages were not always spoken but what you saw it done. I think that that whole strong positive feeling of about the rich cultural history was a part of my upbringing and when i got to the post and especially as an editor in the south section in the 70s i was able to bring a lot of that culture to Mainstream Media because i had a lot of respect for it and a lot of i knew it would be a positive in the American Culture for the black culture to be rescued from the depictions that movies were giving of black people where they wrote about later black people were only being depicted as coons, mammys and all those demeaning positions. To bring another side of it to interview black writers and black artists and people like that but also to show them in their fuel humanity. That was, i think that was part of the early upbringing and im grateful for it. You are a black woman and when you are coming up it was at a time when opportunities for women and specifically black women were limited but you write about how in your Home Education was a big focus for your parents and there was this encouragement for you to pursue a life out in the world and to grow into whatever you could be but i wanted to take you to that day in september 1961 when he walked into the Washington Post as the first black woman reporter they had hired. How much did you feel the weight of that first . I felt it internally because i had been prepared in a way for it by one of my professors at columbia. In many ways he was one of our favorite professors but when i went to him near the end of the semester he said, you have so many handicaps that youll probably make it. I read that and i tried and read it probably four times. [laughter] tried to dissect what he meant by that but what did you think he met . Today it would sound racist and sexist but at that time i think he was trying to prepare me for the reality. What i felt like that first day when i punched a button on the elevator and went up to the fifth floor, the newsroom, you know, i thought i had to invisible weight that no one else in the room would have. One was race and one was gender. There were a few other women there but not even that many white women. I felt like i had to wait for the other people do not have so i was going to dive into the sea of white men and was not sure i could swim but i had to face that if i did it day by day but i dont think i could articulate that at the time but it felt i think i knew what i was diving into and that might have helped when certain challenges arose. Why was it important for you to work in a daily newspaper. You come from the black press and spent a considerable amount of time in from the book what seemed is a nurturing environment and very supportive so why did you think is important to make that change . Part of the reason was it was the height of the Civil Rights Movement which started in the mid 50s and gained leadership of Martin Luther king by the 1957 with the montgomery bus boycott and of that and king was emerging. I think people like me were hearing that we should go into these corporations, white corporations and excel so that was one of the messages i think that was pushing me along and that once again we were doing it for at a certain time and for a larger cause and i dont think i would have articulated it that way at the time but i think we all knew that in many ways we were pioneers. Paint a picture for us about what those first few months were at the Washington Post, when you first got there and its not the warmest welcome though you did have some support for what was it like for you . Well, it was difficult because i knew i could give up but a lot of things were happening. For example, i talked about the fact that it was so hard to get taxicabs just to go out and do my assignment and i knew that i had to be a person who could be counted on to take an assignme assignment, do it, get back on deadline and i said i cannot come back every day and say relate because of the caps so i just think that i had a few secret weapons one of them was that my first two years in college i was that in Ursula College which was a catholic Womens College and i was one of eight young black women that had integrated. I transferred to Lincoln University in missouri when i decided i wanted to be a journalist and they did not have that offering but i had learned shorthand because at the time women were expected to be secretaries and so i would when i was late trying to get a cab and would sometimes trying to write my story in the shorthand in order to be able to when i got to the office type it and get it in on time. Im not saying i never missed a deadline but i do not miss many. Part of it was using those things i knew to help me and the other thing that helped me during those stressful times was that i did seek out black journalists at other publications and all that was helpful as well. What did you get from that . From the Washington Bureau of jet there was Simeon Booker head of that woman named benny grant was his assistant and barry was she reached out to me and she helped me find my first apartment because that did not happen from the post and knew somebody was looking for a roommate and so i was able to get a roommate on capitol hill and that went along fine until i got mugged one late night coming home late from work because you knew you relate especially from the Washington Post and so i needed another home. Benny found someone else in the family who had a room and back they wanted to rent and that turn out to be a wonderful solution and even that black community helped as well so you know, i was fortunate that the things i have learned people i had met in the black press became part of the support structure but i also had a city editor, ben gilbert, who wanted me to succeed and the first black reporter, Simeon Booker, had been at the post ten years before he could only take it for a year and said he was becoming neurotic instead of trying to work in a place where even the dark cemetery segregated and so he understood what i was my challenges. But then gilbert really wanted me to succeed and reached out and invited me to a Cocktail Party at his home and my husband and i and from that i met his wife and she would later reach out to children and those kind of special things and i learned something from all of it. One thing i learned from ben gilbert in that first Cocktail Party i went to was how much this is the cultural differences between white and black people. For example, how much white people viewed social events as ways to move their business ahead and of course, i also adopted that as i became a columnist and other parts of my profession but you know it was a juggling act. You covered Civil Rights Movement in one of your assignments that you to mississippi and reading about the danger easy as a black woman and as a journalist covering these horrific incidents and explain how that experience impacted the way he thought about journalism in your role as a journalist. First of all, when i was charmed by this black man, long black man named James Meredith who had the audacity to try to integrate university in the best scheme of white present and so i thought he must be crazy. He turned out to be very independentminded and so when the post sent me the whole team of reporters and i was assigned to come and go black vanity and i was excited to do that because that was diversity in the news and part of what i wanted, different voices, different amenities and so i arrived in mississippi and it was very dangerous and anarchy on the campus after four failed attempts to be enrolled he finally was slipped into the campus in the dormitory to enroll the next day so i got into you know, right after the anarchy was taking place and i was nervous but i had practical things i had to think about like where what to say because there was no hotels for black people in oxford, mississippi. I went to the black funeral home because that is often where black journalists would go to get information and they said you know you can stay here in the funeral home and so i learned i could sleep among the dead if i had to. [laughter] yeah, yeah. Nobody bothered me. [laughter] it was really okay. It did indicate how many strange beds people had like the black people had to sleep in when there were no hotels in those days, i did not even have the green book. I think what that all shows me was how much or how important black journalists who work for the black press had been in helping to just tell elyse black people, white people probably werent reading the black press but what life was like putting the cotton curtain and that was there were so many things that could be hidden in some of the mentions and things were not written about because they were occurring in black communities but the black reporters who almost had to slip into the south to cover them they were getting the news out in those early reporters had to one of them or some of them would disguise themselves as preachers and put a viable under their arm and go down south so they were not aroused the ire of white [inaudible] sheriffs who would kill them. A lot of them took portable typewriters in their clothes and pants and all of that and ambled down the street as they were taught to do as they went behind the cotton curtain to get stories. I think part of the experience of mississippi and of little rock was just showing the challenges has some of the dangers but also of the satisfaction when you have someone like meredith who succeeded in doing something so brave. There is a fascinating part in the book when you go back to the university of mississippi and ask students and this was several decades later if they knew the story and they did not. As someone who was they are covering that history how stunning was it for you that it had been lost . It was stunning that it had been lost and it was encouraging when i talked to this one particular young man who when i asked him if he knew who James Meredith was then no, never heard of him. I told him about it and in fact we happened to have been walking past the dormitory where James Meredith had lived by himself in a huge dormitory with federal marshals for the two years he was at ole ms. Before he graduated. I told him that and he had been walking with his cap turned backwards and when i told him that he took his cap off and turned it around and said i appreciate what he did. And so i was encouraged that very often the Younger Generation does not the price that was paid but when the know it it gives them understanding it gives them appreciation and i hope that courage to know they also can be barrier breakers. Going back to the Washington Post you were a columnist there and one of the things you did and you spoke directly to black people and there was a fascinating poem you wrote about bo derek when she, i dont know if you remember the name ten but she gets the corn roles in her hair and you wrote a poem that basically said this is your style and i see you. I see you. In your work as a journalist how much of your writing was about letting black readers know you saw them and how much of it was about helping white readers see black people back. I think it was both. I cannot know much of the percentages were but column was really exciting for me to do but also very challenging just because of that i knew it was so important for black people to see black images because i knew how important it was for me to see black images and not to feel that the only thing i was seen were images of white people in the movies and television and all that so i loved to tell the stories and i probably have 1500 columns that someone said you need a good book columns so well see about that but i think the point is that it also gave white people of knowledge. I think there are a lot of people that want that knowledge and america was changing. The Womens Movement was moving women into places where they had not been for and we wanted knowledge and how did other people deal with this and i was always reminded when i interviewed Gloria Steinem many years ago or many years later, rather, when she said the very first article that she wrote about the Womens Movement was after black power, woman power and in other words if they can rise from oppression we are also being oppressed and we can rise. I think the wavy Freedom Movement in america has impacted so many other of the Freedom Movement in this country is fascinating and i think because after the black power and Civil Rights Movement i will call the Freedom Movement that it was a Womans Movement and after that it was gay Rights Movement and that was a positive and after the gay rights it was the disabled and so all over the world as oppressed people were pushing for freedom in Tiananmen Square they were saying we shall overcome and when the berlin wall came down they were singing we shall overcome. In the philippines when they were got rid of articles they were singing we shall overcome. I think how the small relatively small oppressed minority in america could produce a change that has echoed all around the world its quite a positive contribution to the world and then also come out of that still liking why people and it was a profound ethical accompaniment. [laughter] you spent a good amount of your career listing as you climb and create opportunities for other black journalists to find a pathway into this work so when did you first really understand that a lack of diversity in the newsroom impacted an organizations ability to recover in a holistic way . Part of it was the influence of of a man named bob maynard why left the post after about five years in the 60s because i had three Young Children and i was rehired in the early 70s and when i got back bob maynard was one of the Star Reporters and what he showed me and demonstrated to me how important it was to really have diversity in the media and he always said america cant even understand itself if it is only seen through the eyes of one part of america and one of the things that i was grateful for was after that rebellion, urban rebellions of the 60s, and the big president ially appointed Turner Commission said the media had been thoroughly wrong in that it had hired so few black people and that is one of the reasons the chains started to occur. All of those things made me know how important it was and i think one of the things about america its always white americans that are never been willing to embrace the bad things that they have done and its a feeling what americans want to take your innocence. I knew if we could start getting stories out there that just share other peoples stories and think they could relate to on a regular basis perhaps there would be part of people beginning to understand theres a lot that we can own but underneath it all we are brothers and sisters as they say but sometimes they were a bad brother. This conversation about diversity in newsrooms is ongoing and i think a lot of my colleagues, especially colleagues of color are deeply concerned about the makeup of newsrooms and how it affects coverage. What do you say to those of us who feel like not enough progress has been made . Are you encouraged looking at where we are today . I am deeply concerned about where we are today and part of the concern is the fact that from the highest levels of government media is the destabilized by this is not a Political Forum and i will not make it that but by a leader who talks about fake news and who talks or does not understand the ethical basis of the journalism we practice. If i remember going in the post and he walked into the lobby all the ethics that we present and we strive for, all those things are right there on the wall for us to see and part of the issue now is that yes the numbers are dropping and the diversity numbers are dropping at a time for more diversity and more inclusiveness as the world is changing and part of my concern is what i speak about the National Leadership in their attitude toward journalist now is that sometimes black women are mistreated spoken of negatively from the highest quarters in the land and i have heard and theres extra pressure being put on the journalist. For example, some black women journalists covering the white house out. I think that is very disturbing and the fact all of this is happening when journalism is in such a state of change especially longform journalism and radio stations Like National public radio, for which you work, i am concerned because i know how difficult it is still and i think everybody a lot of the editors understand the importance of diversity but they dont understand it enough to do anything about it. That is why organizations like the National Association of black journalists and those organizations are still important to keep that message out there and individuals who are still inside the newspapers doing the work of the journalists but also doing the work of diversity and its, in many ways, a double job and of course the diversity job is also volunteer because the other is a job for which you get paid but i think it made a difference before and hopefully will continue to make a difference but i think we are just in a very unsettling time in the nation right now. We have time for a couple of questions. Ms. Gilliam, he could stand at that microphone and before we go to audience questions there has probably in this audience here and watching on cspan people who are in the trenches rate still in your word of advice for encouragement for those of us who are doing this work and trying to continue the work you did in your career listing as we climb. Well, one piece of advice would be to get the help outside the newsroom you need at a personal level is that therapy and i certainly have my share and it is using are taking advantage of the support of your community and in getting some of your affirmations there and i would think its also important to continue some kind of volunteer association with organizations are pushing for change because sometimes immature journalists also needs a mentor to whom they can speak day after day and to say you can do it and consider doing it this way so i think reaching out to others i certainly had my share of mentors and that made such a defense. The other thing, to the extent possible, try not to take things personally but to really see what you represent that is often under assault and so that when you take care of yourself in the heat of the battle is because you know that okay, im taking care of myself but also take care of those who are coming behind me. Amazing advice. Do you have a question here . First off, what an amazing conversation. My question and i have not read the book yet but ill purchase it today is about a subpoena for justice coming up at the same time i thank you are in washington and is there anything you could share about Ruth Baders Ginsburg and i dont think those writing a book by wondering if that was an influence or interviewed her in anything he could comment on that would be appreciated. I never had the pleasure of interviewing Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that would have been a marvelous experience. I think that there were early contacts before she became who she became through our children and through some of the schools that are mutual children want to but i have a great deal of respect and admiration for her and she is really taking the leadership in the so many of the issues of reproduction rights issues that are important to women but never had that pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you. This gilliam, its been such a pleasure to talk with you and to thank you for sharing your journey with us and for your encouraging words and i hope that for all my colleagues here in the audience today will do their duty proud going forward. You do me proud by everything you do and thank you for taking the time to not only read the book but to be in conversation with me today. Truly my pleasure. Thank you. [applause] [applause] i want to personally say thank you, ms. Gilliam. Thank you for attending our program. If you want to purchase books and get them signed to be at the entrance. Have a good day. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] tina thank you everybody for coming. I am a visiting fellow here at aei and we are here for a great conversation. It will be a conversation tonight about nationalism, nationhood, family and father