Washington Press Club Foundation

Ethel Payne: Interview #7

November 17, 1987 in Washington, DC

Kathleen Currie, Interviewer

Ethel Payne - November 17, 1987 tape 1 of 2

November 17th, 1987
Listen to audio

Ethel Payne - November 17, 1987 tape 2 of 2

November 17th, 1987
Listen to audio

Ethel Payne - November 17, 1987 tape 1 of 2

November 17th, 1987
Listen to audio

Ethel Payne - November 17, 1987 tape 2 of 2

November 17th, 1987
Listen to audio
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[Begin Tape 1, Side A]

Currie: This is interview number seven.

Payne: Yes. It's hard to believe.

Currie: I know. It's been a long, interesting life. I think what I'd like to do is go back to 1978. I know we talked about it on the video interviews, but I think maybe we can get a little more depth. 1978 was the year that you left the Chicago Defender.

Payne: Right. I returned. No. Let me get this straight. I moved back to Chicago and moved back to Washington in 1980. Yes, that's right. But I left the Chicago Defender and became a freelancer after 1978.

Currie: You and John Sengstacke had come to a parting of the ways.

Payne: We had.

Currie: Also Morrie Robinson had died, so you didn't have your Spectrum contract.

Payne: That's right.

Currie: So you were faced with making a living.

Payne: Making a living, right.

Currie: How did you go about that?

Payne: Well, what I did was immediately after the word came out that John Sengstacke and I had, you know, come to a parting of the ways, I got offers from several other papers to continue my column, and one of them was the Afro. I began and was picked up by the Miami Times and a chain of papers in California, small weekly papers. And that and my Social Security, was enough to, you know, tide me over. It wasn't that much, but it was enough to tide me over.

Currie: So you were getting Social Security.

Payne: Oh, yes, I was getting Social Security then.

Currie: Did you have a pension from the Chicago Defender?

Payne: No! That's one thing. John Sengstacke never established a pension plan for his employees, at least not to my knowledge. He never did.

Currie: So nobody who worked on the Defender ever got a retirement plan?

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Payne: No, unless they paid into one of their own. Some of them probably did, but he never really did. But you know, I have to add something to that. It's been just this past October, last month, that John Sengstacke and I met again in Baltimore. The Afro-American had their celebration. They called it the Black Press Hall of Fame, and they inducted a number of people into it, living and dead. One of them was John Sengstacke, on the basis of the fact that he had pioneered the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Thirty-five years ago he pioneered that.

Then they also chose him on the basis of the fact that he had met the challenge to the First Amendment, in World War II, when President Roosevelt felt that the black press was too aggressive and too belligerent, and he wanted to shut it down. John Sengstacke had had a face-off with then-Attorney General Biddle on the matter of the challenge to the black press. He single-handedly went and confronted him. Well, Mr. Biddle was aware of the repercussions this would cause and the danger to the general press was that this could be very harmful. So he was enough of a civil libertarian to understand that, so he refused to move on it.

The black press had complained bitterly about the segregation in the armed forces. It complained about the lack of black employment, and all of these things that were still endemic in the whole system. They believed that hand in hand with the war effort, that improvements should be made in the social conditions in the country. Mr. Roosevelt and particularly Hoover, of course, J. Edgar Hoover, believed that the status quo for blacks and minorities should be maintained, that their considerations did not supersede the war effort. Everything was geared towards the war effort, patriotism, and all of that. Mr. Sengstacke, representing the black newspapers in this country, challenged that. He said, "We have a right. We were founded on that, we have a right to maintain our position, and we're just as patriotic as anyone else, but we believe that we have to have improvements in these areas." So it was a very tense period, very tense. Mr. Hoover tried his best to move in on the black press. In fact, some of them came close to calling it treasonous, but it finally died down when the attorney general wouldn't budge on it.

Currie: So they were inducting John Sengstacke into the Hall of Fame.

Payne: They were inducting John Sengstacke into the Black Press Hall, and this was my first meeting with him in about five years. Let me say this. We had never come to the point where we were just not speaking to one another or anything; it was just a parting of the ways. I had grown to know him well enough to understand his disposition, his problems, his personal life, and everything else. So I said, "So be it," you know.

Currie: What was John Sengstacke's disposition?

Payne: He's a very introverted person. He has a lot of hang-ups. He's done well for himself financially, but he's an insecure person.

Let me get back to Baltimore this past October. I was on a panel discussing the history of the black press, and I paid tribute to John Sengstacke for giving me the opportunity to get into journalism and to afford me the opportunity to travel and to broaden my own experiences. And I looked in the back, and there he was sitting there, so I said, "There's John Sengstacke back there, and I want him to stand up, because I want to acknowledge what he has done for me."

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Well, I think it just struck him, it just really struck him, you know. I mean, it touched something in him. So after the panel broke up, we were supposed to go to lunch, and he came up, and he grabbed me and hugged me and hugged me and hugged me, and then he said, "Can we talk?"

I said, "Sure." So we went over and sat down, and he looked at me for a long time, and I looked at him and we didn't say anything. Finally, he said, "You know, there's a lot gone by. Let's let the past be past."

I said, "John, you know, I've never held onto it. I've never held any prejudice."

He said, "You know, did Faith Christmas call you?" Faith Christmas was his assistant. He said, "Did she call you?"

I said, "Yes, she called me some time ago."

And he said, "What did she say?"

"She said that you were interested in seeing if I could resume my column or resume my association with the paper."

"What did she tell you?"

I said, "She didn't tell me. She didn't elaborate any further. I simply told her that I couldn't do it full-time, but I would give you something three times a week."

He said, "Well, she never told me that. She never told me that, and she should have." He said, "I want you. I need you. I have to have you. I need you. The paper just needs something." Well, what he was talking about is the type of coverage I'm giving the other papers, and he's realizing that the Defender is missing something.

So I said, "Well, let's see what we can work out."

He said, "I'll be in touch with you." It's true, I've been away a lot, so he may have tried to reach me, but I haven't really had any further contact with him. But I could tell that there was some pain inside, and that was the reason why he was approaching me. He was almost like a child, you know, that has done something but doesn't want to acknowledge it, and when he finally releases it, it's kind of painful to say, "I'm sorry about what has happened." And that's the way I feel about him. I have no hard feelings against him, none whatsoever.

Currie: It sounds like a real healing thing.

Payne: Yes. I realize it is he who needs that. It is he who needs the healing, you know, because I've never had—

Currie: So you weren't angry at him?

Payne: No, no, I wasn't angry with him. I just realized that John has his hang-ups and he has his problems, and that was it. There was no point in carrying it further. I always was cognizant of the fact that he was the one who really was responsible for my start, and it was he who gave me the opportunities I would never have had, you know, the travel and all the opportunities to do unusual things. So there was no

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point in hanging onto the bad things; you think about the good things. So that's the way I felt about it.

Currie: So would you go back to the Defender now and write?

Payne: I'm not going back. Let's say I'm not going back, because I'm not going back to Chicago or do anything like that. I will furnish them some things. I'm at this point in life now that I'm not so much a reporter in the sense of the word. I think I'm now becoming more of an issue oriented person, an activist who wants to pursue some of the ills that affect society and to see what I can do from my experience to address those problems.

Like this morning I went to a breakfast at Howard University, and it's one of the monthly breakfasts that they have with some newsmaker. They call it a newsmaker breakfast. And this morning the person was Dr. Faustine Jones. She's noted because of her association in history, but more than that, she's been a teacher. Her subject this morning was on the dilemma of black youth, particularly black male youth, and the absence of direct approaches to it. She's saying that it is a waste that you just watch before your very eyes, the dissolution of black youth in this country. What she is saying is that the initiative has to be taken hold of by people of every strata.

The black middle class has a great responsibility to the lower strata of the economic base. And somehow we have to get to these children before it's too late. She said, among other things, that the crisis that is upon us has such great proportions, such great dimension, that it's like the AIDS thing; it's something that is among us, and we're reluctant, but we have to do something about it before the whole thing comes crashing in on all of us, not only on black people, but the whole society. And in the climate of the Reagan administration, where they are hell-bent on destroying the social programs, we have got to find some alternatives. We've got to find some ways to meet this problem.

One of the things that she pointed out—and I guess I have seen it, but I really haven't seriously thought about it—that is, she was saying that one of the great scares that we're facing now is a new thing that is occurring among black children, and that is what she calls aping white. Carl Rowan has spoken about this. In fact, Carl Rowan is trying to do something about this. There's something that has settled in among black youth that now the peer pressure is—they can't act like they're excellent at learning, they can't act like they're striving for higher things. They respond to the peer pressure of being, you know, defiant and black, because "that's whitey's business." It used to be called "sissy." Now it's something else, but it's grown more serious, and it's affecting even children of the middle class, who don't want to achieve, because that's not the cool thing. This is a danger. This is a real danger. She was saying that we have to reverse that.

So I said to her, "Well, you know, I think that one of the things that you have to do is you have to pool all the resources of the media that you can to back you up in this," because it's purely a voluntary thing that she's done, put together. I said, "In order to have some success, you're going to have to have some strong media backing." So I said that I would like to call together a group of journalists, that is, Dorothy Gilliam, Carl Rowan, Bill Raspberry, bring all of them together as an advisory group to her unit, and see what we can come up with in ways of giving some real supportive action to the project, because it affects all of us. Bill Raspberry is a father; Dorothy Gilliam is a mother. I'm not a mother, but it affects me as much as it does them. So we decided that in January we would put together something like that. She was so eager, so happy, so grateful for that suggestion. With the university as the background. I think we can come up with some ideas.

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One of the things that I think that can be done is to turn to the youth themselves, the children themselves. How do I mean that? I think, you know, one of the greatest expressions, the greatest outlets is through the theater, drama. If we could put together some drama groups to act out their feelings, to encourage them to put their own emotions into acting, you know, and really come up with some innovative things, that, I think, will have a greater impression than if we just talk to them, just lecture them, because that's not going to be the thing.

I was thinking about the South African situation. I'm going up to New York to see the play called "Saraphina," and "Saraphina" is built around the children of Soweto who rebelled against the government decree that they had to learn the Afrikaner language, and they rebelled against it, refused to learn, and it precipitated this massacre of children. But the story of the heroics of these children, these young children, some as young as eight years old, who joined in the protest, has been put into this play called "Saraphina." I want to see if we can't capture some of that spirit in how these children responded to that, the bravery, the heroics, and put it into dramatic form so that this is now another play, you know, and it's a message to the whole world. So I think that if we could encourage that kind of thing here in this crisis that we're faced with now, that would be one way of doing it.

Currie: So you are really becoming—

Payne: I'm becoming more and more of an activist now on issues.

Currie: And using some of the contacts, it sounds like, that you've made over the years.

Payne: Yes, we can harness that and use that as a backup.

Currie: That's interesting. It's an outgrowth of everything that's gone before.

Payne: That's right. That's right.

Currie: I have a couple of questions. You said that you'd been to the conference on the evolution of the black press.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: What do you think the changes have been for the black press?

Payne: The black press has gone through some profound changes. One of the things, they joined the whole surge that arose in the late seventies toward shall we call the pragmatic thing, where there was a sort of break between the spirit of the sixties and you turned, instead, to pragmatism.

Currie: So in other words, not so much idealism but, "How do we sell the papers?"

Payne: Exactly, yes. How you sell papers. There was a rush towards business administration. Everybody was going in for business administration. The kids just abandoned the old traditions of teaching. We can hardly find any children now—and that's black and white—who have gone in for teaching as a career. In the first place, the salaries are abysmal, as Dr. Jones pointed out. Janitors make more than teachers, not that janitors shouldn't be well paid, but, you know, that's a disgrace. And here you have this nutty Secretary of Education running around the country talking

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about that teachers ought to be more motivated. But how do you motivate teachers when they can't even make a living? A starting salary of $18,000, and here's somebody fresh out of college who's got $30,000 worth of loans. How can you justify? What can you do with $18,000 to take care of that loan and take care of one's own personal needs? So there is a real dearth in the teaching profession, and what we need to do is work on that problem, if they cut the guts out.

The only valuable asset that this nation has is its youth, and if its youth is not prepared, then we're going to be way behind Japan and all the rest of the world, because we don't put enough emphasis on it. So I think we can have a many-pronged attack on this approach towards this. That's what I'm going to suggest to this media advisory group. One unit should be focused on the political thing. We're facing a national election next year. Let's make that one of the strong issues for whatever administration comes in. We will do the political effort. The second would be to focus on youth itself, motivating youth. And a third would be on the academics, because the public schools are in low repute. Secretary Bennett has called the Chicago public school system the worst in the country, but what has he done or what has the administration done to keep that stigma from it? So there's a many-pronged approach that can be done, and I'm anxious to get started on that.

Currie: I can tell you are really fired up on this.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: I wonder if we could get back to the black press a little bit.

Payne: Oh, yes. The black press does have a role. What we need to do is get off all this stuff about making a whole bundle of money and come on back to the basics and get with it.

Currie: So you think the black press has changed. From my readings—I did some reading over at Howard about the black press—it really started as an advocacy press to combat lynching and act as an advocate for the black community. How has the black press changed in your lifetime?

Payne: Of course, you see, one of the things that we have achieved in our lifetime, in my lifetime, is remarkable successes from the legislative end, shall we say. The anti-lynching bill wiped that out. That was successfully wiped out. We wiped out Jim Crow in travel. We've wiped out segregation in public accommodations. We've instituted the voting right, and that's opened the door to thousands of people for elected offices all over the country at every level of government. So we have had some spectacular accomplishments in the legislative end. That doesn't mean that we don't have some problems remaining. There's been a lot of problems in the implementation of these things, but at least they're on the statute books, and we can fall back on them. But there are several things that we have to work on, and I've just talked about the education. Another serious, serious, serious problem is the blacks in the criminal justice system. Black on black crime is just raging, and we have really got to address that problem. Another serious, serious problem is the health crisis in the black community. The epidemic of AIDS, the epidemic of cancer, of high blood pressure, all of these things, these are society's problems; they're not just black problems. These are society's problems. The incidence of drug-related things, you know, those are great issues, great issues. There the black press has to be remobilized to make a conclusive—

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Currie: I'm sorry. I need to switch the tape.

[End Tape 1, Side A; Begin Tape 1, Side B]

Payne: The black press has to be reactivated and mobilized to again act in concert on some of these things.

Currie: What I hear you saying is that after the sixties, there was a period where the black press was more interested in selling newspapers.

Payne: I'll say this. I think we all felt that, "Oh, gosh, isn't it wonderful? We've got the Voting Rights Act, we can go anywhere we want to to eat, we can sleep in any hotel which we can afford, we can travel anywhere we want and not be harassed." We just thought it was great. It was almost like the millennium had come. But that's an illusion, you know.

Currie: So you think that the black press eased off its mission?

Payne: Yes, they did. They sat back on their oars and said, "Isn't it wonderful? And now we can go after more circulation. Now we can go after more advertising." And they see the success of some magazines like Ebony, which is a fantastic success, the Black Enterprise magazine, all these things that have sprung up largely through the ground work that was laid in the sixties. Well, that sent a message: "Now we can concentrate on the economic." Yeah, fine, fine. Sure, we've got to concentrate on the economic, but we can't forget the great social issues at the same time. We can't ignore them, because they're still around and they're still the same old enemies. It just means that we have to combine the two now.

Currie: Also in my reading, I read a lot about the origin of the Chicago Defender. I also read about some of the criticisms that people have had of the black press.

Payne: Yes, many.

Currie: You probably know them better than I do.

Payne: [Laughter.] Yes!

Currie: One was that it was a sensational press.

Payne: It was. It thought that was a way of selling papers. It used to be that they thought that crime—they'd dwell on crime and the violence in the black community, and they'd show the killings and the open caskets and all that, and that this sold papers, which was a terrible misconception. Thank God we're through with that, at least hopefully. I mean, we're not dwelling on that so much. And then the quality of the papers is the thing that concerns me gravely, because there are too many mistakes, there are too poor layouts and arrangements and so forth, and that begs to be improved upon. I get so angry when they take my copy and butcher it, you know. That just makes me personally very angry.

Currie: I've never heard of a writer who didn't get angry.

Payne: Yes!

Currie: So does that happen to you frequently?

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Payne: Oh, it does! Too often! Too often! And every once in a while I fire off a hot message to all of the papers, "Shape up, or else I won't send you the column."

Currie: What do they do most frequently that angers you?

Payne: Well, sometimes they deliberately misspell. The proofing is so bad, and sometimes they take license. That's the thing that gets me. Don't take license with me, because I know what I'm writing about, and don't change words unless you call me or do something. But don't take my copy and just automatically change the wording to suit yourself. Don't do that. Don't do that, because I am very careful about that. I think I have a good command of words, and I know what to do with them. I don't want some person sitting down here in a room, reading and saying, "Oh, well, that don't sound right. I'll change this word around." And they've probably never even heard of the word or haven't looked it up, you know. So that angers me. I get very upset about that.

Currie: How do you deal with some of the editors who do this?

Payne: Oh, yeah. I'm a curmudgeon. [Laughter.] I really raise hell about that.

Currie: What do the editors say?

Payne: "Oh, yes, yes, yes." But then you have to keep after them. Unless you're sitting in the composing room yourself or where they do the proofing, you know, you can't stand like a policeman over them. All you ask them to do is, "Please, shape up and do it right."

Currie: Has this been an ongoing thing with you?

Payne: Yes, it goes on. It goes on. Well, I must say that we aren't the only ones guilty. Sometimes I look at the New York Times and they garble so much that you can hardly make sense of it. And time after time I've taken the New York Times, and they'll say, "Continued on such and such a page." And you turn to that page, and there's nothing that resembles it. Maybe instead of 22, it's on 23, you know. So there are mistakes made.

Currie: Sure. So what could, for example, the black press do to improve these issues that you've brought up?

Payne: Well, one of them is that it's just a matter of being responsible and putting somebody there who can control the traffic and see that it's done right. You know, there's nothing that beats quality. Make it a readable paper. That's what turns so many black people off from supporting the black press. They say, "Oh, that little raggedy sheet," you know. "Nothing in it, and they mess up so bad." [Laughter.] But those same people, if something comes up and they get in trouble, they come right back to the black press.

Currie: In what way?

Payne: I mean, if something happens that affects them, and the white media doesn't address it, they know they run back to the black press to air and ventilate their feelings, particularly if it's something that affects them personally. They come back.

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Currie: Maybe we can go back to 1978, because we got off on John Sengstacke and the black press.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: But then you started freelancing.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: I imagine you didn't have a pension from the Chicago Defender?

Payne: No.

Currie: Was that common? Did a lot of reporters not have a pension?

Payne: Well, I don't know what it is with other papers, but black papers have never had the kind of financial resources to institute pension plans, so it's just been one of those struggles, that if you didn't find a way of buying into some security on your own, then it was tough; you just were left out in the cold.

Currie: What about some of your other colleagues on the black press? Did they ever grumble about no pension plan?

Payne: Oh, everybody grumbles. Everybody grumbles about it, you know. And many of them did try to substitute in that way. I'll tell you. A lot of them moonlighted a great deal in order to get something to give more financial security. Me, I just have always been so devoted that I've put in 12, 13, 14, 14, 18 hours a day, you know, just for the love of it. So I've neglected myself in that process. But fortunately, I have been able to survive and survive pretty well, but it's not a good thing. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone. I think you should be more aware of your own circumstances and your own security, because I've relied on my good health and my clear thinking and the fact that I have gained a lot of, shall we say, status as a writer, and, fortunately, I haven't had a catastrophe to confront me.

Currie: What about just a journeymen reporters? What did some of your colleagues do when it came time to retire?

Payne: You know what happened. Most of them were absorbed in the majority press. There are more graduates of the black press on the Washington Post, on the New York Times, on every newspaper in this country, yet still they make up less than 4% of the whole population. Every black person I know of who has achieved any kind of status at all has come out of the black press. Now, they either went into the majority media or they went into government. There's a real drain, a real brain drain.

Currie: What did people do on moonlighting jobs? What kind of jobs did they have?

Payne: Sometimes they worked for jobs that were not related to journalism whatsoever. Sometimes they worked in retail businesses. It is possible that a few of them worked part-time for government.

Currie: And they had to do that?

Payne: Yes, they did it to supplement themselves. [Tape interruption.]

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Currie: So they worked part-time to supplement their incomes.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: If reporters spent their whole lives in the black press what did they do when it was time to retire? How did they survive?

Payne: The roles were reversed. For example, I know quite a few persons now—several, shall I say—who loved the black press. What they did was they went into government, and then they moonlighted for the black press. [Laughter.] They reversed the role completely.

Currie: Oh, I see. So when they retired, they could go work for the black press.

Payne: Sometimes even while they were still working.

Currie: Interesting. I met a woman while I was over at Howard doing research. She was researching the black press, but in a little different way. She was researching women who had become writers for the black press. She said that a lot of them had been former teachers.

Payne: Yes. You know why? Because teaching was the only thing that blacks had to turn to, particularly black women. Remember, we discussed a little bit before how that has changed. But we had a preponderance of teachers, because that was the profession that was open, and so in my family I had a whole string of teachers, because that was one of the ways of getting an education and getting a profession. So yes, that's true. She's saying that a lot of those teachers now have become writers?

Currie: Just basically that she's doing research on it. We didn't discuss it a lot, but she said she found that a lot of the women who ended up reporters for the black press had been teachers.

Payne: Yes. Alfreda Madison is a classic case. You know Alfreda?

Currie: No, but we mentioned her before.

Payne: Alfreda raised that question at the last press conference. She's a retired teacher.

Currie: Was that true during the time when you started working for the Chicago Defender in the fifties?

Payne: True how?

Currie: Were a lot of the people who were working on the Defender teachers or former teachers?

Payne: Well, let's say this. There were some who were teachers, who did part-time work as society writers.

Currie: I see.

Payne: Or religious writers. They were teachers, or maybe they worked in government.

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But they would come in and work and do the society columns or the religious page, because those were two big staples, the society pages and religious, the church thing.

Currie: Now we really will go back to 1978. You started to freelance. You got offers from weekly papers, primarily.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: So, basically, you switched your column from the Defender to a number of other papers.

Payne: That's right.

Currie: And at that point, you got a Ford Foundation grant?

Payne: Yes, it was 1978 that I was chosen for a Ford Foundation Fellowship in Educational Journalism. That was the term.

Currie: Had you applied for that?

Payne: No. I was recommended for it. They called me and asked me. It was administered by George Washington University. I was then asked to submit a topic that I thought would be an appropriate area, and so immediately my mind went to the status of black colleges. So I was given the topic of black colleges in the United States, and the stipend covered travel and money for research and so forth. It lasted about 18 months, I think.

Currie: How did you proceed on this research project?

Payne: First, I went to New York to sit with the United Negro College Fund and used all of their resources, because they don't cover the public colleges, but they do cover the private black colleges, of which there are about 50, I think, in the country. They have an enormous bank of resources. So I was able to start there. I used the Urban League. Then for the public colleges—I mean, there's an umbrella organization in Washington, the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, a long drawn-out title, it's called NAFEO for short, and NAFEO addresses the issues and concerns of black colleges, period, public and private. They meet once a year to have a conference, a convention on this whole thing. So those were two sources—well, actually three with the Urban League. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was another one. The Moorland-Spingarn collection at Howard University was another source. And then from my own context, then I mapped out some travel plans for on-site trips. I think, all in all, actually, I got to about 15 colleges during the time that I was doing this. I tried to make a cross-section of them that were representative of both the public and the private sectors.

Currie: This was in addition to doing your columns?

Payne: Yes, I was still carrying on with my columns.

Currie: How was this different than what you had done before?

Payne: I'd never undertaken that kind of real heavy research that it required, so it was different. It was almost like a teaching assignment, but it was interesting. I found it greatly interesting, and I had my advisors, and I had some wonderful people

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who undertook to help me with the project, who were kind of familiar with that sort of background and research and everything. They were really great. In fact, they helped me put the book together, the little book we did on that.

Currie: We've got it for our archives.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: What did you learn from doing that project?

Payne: The value. The value of research, the value from a documentary standpoint and as a data bank to pull from for future work. I think the work that I did was helpful from not only a historical standpoint but from a point where you could draw upon it for a number of things, other projects. I think I got enough out of it.

Currie: After the Ford Foundation project came to an end, you moved back to Washington?

Payne: In 1980, yes.

Currie: So you were based in Chicago until that was finished?

Payne: Yes.

Currie: Then I think we discussed earlier that you were aching to get back.

Payne: Yes, I was, because my work with the Ford Foundation project brought me to Washington, and I knew that I had to be in Washington if I were going to continue my modus operandi about being on the scene. I always liked to feel I want to keep a pulse on what's going on, a finger on the pulse of what's happening in Washington. This is my bailiwick. [Laughter.] This is my natural habitat. To take me out of it, I'm like an animal out of its environment, you know.

Currie: So you've been here for the last seven years, then.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: For the last seven years, what has your life been like with your work? How would you describe the work that you've been doing?

Payne: I hate to talk about myself in these terms. But I think you know that I've become a celebrity. I have to deal with that celebrity status. I am so much in demand as a sort of an icon. At noontime at George Haley's office—

Currie: Alex Haley's brother.

Payne: Yes. He had brought in about 30 or 40 people to just have a little get-together. We had a deli lunch around the table. There were a lot of people there that I knew, people who had status in the community, and some people were lawyers—an assortment of people. George got up and talked about how glad he was to have everybody there, and particularly some friends of his from Arkansas whom he had known when we was at the University of Arkansas, and they were in town. He was really building this occasion around him. So then he went around the table, and he started introducing everybody, talking about each person. And when he came to me, he said,

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"And this is the mother of journalism." [Laughter.] I was so embarrassed. But that's the way everybody—everybody started clapping, you know. You know, all this recognition, all this fame. That's been the thing that I guess I've become. I guess now I'm a role model. We talk about role models. I'm a role model for so many young people, even older people, who see me as somebody who has made a mark. They value my advice; they value my judgment. Most of all, they talk about my integrity, which is very flattering, you know, because I have tried to live by that code of ethics. So I'm in demand as a speaker, not many paid engagements, but you know, particularly people who ask you to come and talk to high school groups or talk to other community groups or speak at some church or something. So that's the role I have to play now.

Currie: So you enjoy some of it?

Payne: I am honored by it. I am honored by it, but as I say, I get a little flustered at playing this type of thing. I'm not that comfortable with it, really, because I hate self-inflation, you know.

Currie: I guess maybe that's a journalistic thing.

Payne: Yes. But I realize that there's a need for this kind of thing in the black community. We need somebody to look up to, so if that's the role I play, then I just have to play it.

Currie: How many times a week do you write your column?

Payne: I write a column, just a once-a-week column, but in the meantime, I'm exploring the other things for articles and speeches. Since I was elected this year for the Miller Brewing Company Calendar of Greats, I have been on the road so much for that.

Currie: Tell me about that.

Payne: I have no idea of who the judges were or who made the selections. The Miller Company each year produces a calendar. This is part of their community operation. They produce a calendar of what they call the Calendar of Greats, and one year the theme will be a Calendar of Firsts, people who have made great achievements, outstanding achievements. Like one year they had Carl Stokes and people like that, who have succeeded in politics. Then the next year they had the Calendar of Sports or something that was the theme. Then this year it was the Calendar of Journalists. I had no idea that it was even under consideration until I was notified that I had been selected for this year's theme. They just went all out with this, and my goodness, they have just spent so much money, you know, on this thing. So that has put an extra onus on me to be somebody to live up to this, because everywhere I go, they have the exhibit in the cities and everything, and they'll say, "There she is. That's Ethel Payne. That's Ethel Payne." It's always some kind of awe, you know, like I'm somebody, you know. They just kind of reach out to touch, you know, So like I say, that has been a great responsibility.

Currie: Has any part of it been fun for you?

Payne: Yes, I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed the travel and meeting people in each of these cities, many of whom I already know. It just means adding a little bit more to my contact sources.

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Currie: You've also, in the last number of months, I know, broadcast for NPR, and you now have become a source on the civil rights movement, too. Do you find that people come to you with this?

Payne: Oh, all the time. All the time. All the time. I'm just the number one source of information because I've lived it, you see. It's like somebody says, I'm old enough now at this point where I don't have to read history, I've lived history. [Laughter.]

Currie: That's funny. I need to change the tape.

[End Tape 1, Side B; Begin Tape 2, Side A]

Currie: Can we go back a little bit? Was there any time in your career where there was a story that presented a moral dilemma for you?

Payne: Yes. I'm trying to pinpoint one. Yes. One of them was how to handle the Jesse Jackson-Farrakhan thing.

Currie: That would be a big moral dilemma.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: Tell me about that.

Payne: It so happens that I think that much of what Minister Farrakhan says is logical. I don't agree with everything he says, but his philosophy of self-help is very appealing and has a strong message. I think that if there weren't so much antagonism towards him, he would have an even greater following. I don't subscribe to his denunciations, you know. The diatribe disturbs me. But even that, I know, comes out of a deep well. I can see parallels between that and the struggle in South Africa, for example, where they just released this Mbeki, I think he is, from prison after 23 years, and he comes out and he says he hasn't changed a bit; he's still bitter against the white regime, he's still bitter against all the things that have kept him in, and he would do the same thing over again. So I understand that. I understand the makings, if I can say this, I understand the makings of fanatics. I use that word lightly, so-called "fanatics." (Let me put that in quotes). "Fanatics" like Marcus Garvey, who started the "back to Africa" movement. I can understand people like the late Elijah Mohammed, the black Muslims, and I understand Farrakhan. I understand what made a Farrakhan. I can understand what made a Malcolm X. Now, that doesn't mean that I subscribe to their tactics, but I know where they come from. I know what ingredients were there to do something like that.

I think that the sooner we learn to understand the elements of society that transform people into radicals. In other words, we don't deal with the problems, we don't deal with the cause; we're always after some kind of cure. If there's somebody who comes up, you know—well, let me go back and say this. To the Israelis and Jewish people, you have a rabbi, Meir Kahane. Now, he's a fanatic, and he's an extremist in every sense of the word. But I know what made Meir Kahane. Do you understand what I'm trying to say, what I'm trying to follow? The ingredients were there for him. The ingredients may have been there for Adolf Hitler. I'm not saying that justifies Adolf Hitler, but until you deal with the basic problems, the basic cures, you're always going to produce people that don't conform, who are in rebellion.

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Let's say you take in the Philippines now, the problems going on in the Philippines. Corazon Aquino is a great woman, a great woman, and I think she came in with the desire to heal, but she's up against such formidable odds, and all the bitterness that has transpired before, you get the communist insurgents so excited and, still, fanatics following Ferdinand Marcos, who were troublemakers. So you get that kind of thing.

That brings me back now to the problem with dealing with the story on Minister Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson and his candidacy. You know, my column also goes into the Final Call, that's one of the newspapers that it goes into.

Currie: The what?

Payne: The Final Call, it's called. It's the organ of the Nation of Islam. By the way, it's a pretty good little paper. It's nothing but propaganda, but it's a pretty good little paper. It's well laid out.

Currie: And they get your column on a freelance basis?

Payne: Yes.

Currie: And they run it?

Payne: They run it, yes.

Currie: Do they fool with your copy at all?

Payne: No! They don't take license with my copy. But Jesse Jackson, in this latest issue I picked up, the latest issue, there they're challenging Jesse Jackson to meet with Minister Farrakhan. See, he broke off from him after the heat was on so intensely. He broke oft completely, and he just divorced himself from it, because there was such a terrible reaction to it. Now they're saying it's time for Jesse to come back and meet with Minister Farrakhan. Now, what he'll do about that, I don't know, but the point of it is that there is still polarization on that.

Currie: Originally, how did the story evolve for you, the story about Jesse Jackson and Minister Farrakhan?

Payne: It didn't evolve with me, it evolved with Milton Coleman and the Washington Post.

Currie: How did you get involved in it?

Payne: It's a story that naturally came my way, you know. I deal with Jesse Jackson; I've dealt with Minister Farrakhan. So my problem was—and believe me it was a real searching—how to treat that and not fall into a trap of saying—I couldn't criticize one or

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the other—or be unfair to one or the other. This was a real dilemma for me: How do I treat this story? Should I go in and blast Minister Farrakhan, as the press was bashing him? Should I go overboard in sympathy with Jesse? How to strike a fair and objective ground in dealing with that story?

Carrie: Just to recap, could you talk about the issues around the story? What was happening with Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan?

Payne: Nothing has stirred the kingdom of journalism so much as the controversial "Hymie" remark made by Jesse Jackson to Milton Coleman, a black reporter for the Washington Post during the 1984 presidential campaign. Coleman had been assigned to cover the black candidate for the highest office in the land on an exclusive basis.

The trouble began, as most flaps do. during a lull between flights at a Washington commuter airport. Apparently, Jesse who is an expert in media manipulation. with a keen sense of avoiding entrapment, "let his hair down," as the vernacular goes, transposing Coleman as a "brother" for the moment and not a journalist poised to record all the warts in the make-up of the charismatic preacher.

Jesse is a back slapper and a hand gripper who likes to "get down" with soul folks in his relaxed moments. Stretched out in a lounge chair, with his feet propped up on an attache case, he casually made reference to the power of the Jewish vote, invoking the trigger words "Hymie" and New York City as "Hymietown." Coleman stored

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this in his memory bank, but he neither demurred at the time from the use of the term, not did he give any indication of what it could imply as a campaign weapon.

It was nearly a month later before he mentioned the incident to a fellow reporter for the Post, Rick Atkinson, who inserted the remark on the 37th paragraph of a long piece on the campaign. That was on February 13, 1984. George Curry, a black reporter for the Chicago Tribune, did a full page commentary on the Coleman-Jackson encounter that was picked up by the Philadelphia Inquirer in its Sunday, April 8 edition.

This is what he wrote in part, under the heading "BLACK REPORTERS FIND THEMSELVES IN A CROSS FIRE." On February 22, the paper published three stories—two columns and a news story—cataloguing Jackson's actions. Ombudsman Sam Zagoria wrote, "In probing the matter, I have been told that Mr. Jackson used such language more than once in informal conversations with black reporters on the campaign trail."

"A news story by Atkinson that day disclosed that Coleman had heard Jackson use the terms Jan. 25 in a cafeteria at the National Airport in Washington." What followed was a storm of protest from Jewish organizations and a wall of defense raised by black reporters working for the white media who found themselves smack dab in the middle of a storm of criticism from blacks who accused Coleman of "ratting" on a black who had dared to challenge the accepted norm that only white males should be accepted as presidential candidates. The Washington Post editorialized that Coleman was being unfairly treated for being "objective" in relating the story.

To me, there were some serious flaws in the episode that were overlooked by the media as well as the critics and the black reporters who had put on hair shirts. In the matter of integrity, the question was why did Milton Coleman wait from January 25 to February 13 before giving the item to Rick Atkinson? Since he was the only identifiable witness to the Hymie remark, how is it that he himself did not break he story? The manner and the motive behind the publication raised doubts. At least two reporters, Sylvester Monroe, the Boston bureau chief for Newsweek magazine and Earl Caldwell, columnist for the New York Daily News, voiced their skepticism. "That's inexcusable," said Monroe. "Everything I know about journalism says if you can't get in touch with the source, don't do the piece." Caldwell called it "sloppiness. It doesn't just speak to that reporter, it speaks to his editors and the entire management system."

The Post was chastised about the way the story was handled. "If it was so important why was the 'Hymie' quote reported in the 37th paragraph of a 40-inch article? And what about the ethical considerations? Should off-the-record private comments be published? If so, under what circumstances?"

There were other questions raised in 1981 surrounding Coleman's role in the infamous Janet Cooke's winning of the Pulitzer Prize for her fabricated story of an 8-year-old boy portrayed as an heroin addict, only to have the young reporter exposed as a liar and the Washington Post in humiliation handing back the coveted award two days later. Coleman as editor of the District Affairs Department for the Post was Cooke's immediate supervisor. While Cooke hid behind a subterfuge that she could not reveal the whereabouts of the child because there were threats to her sources, Coleman failed to check on the facts and the Post refused to accede to the request of the Mayor and the Police Chief to identify the child and his family so that they could investigate the situation and remove the boy for his own protection. Only after the hoax was revealed did Coleman and other editors escort Cooke through the neighborhood where the child allegedly lived. Under pressure, the truth finally came to light.

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Currie: Okay. Now that we've laid the groundwork, how did you approach this issue? What were the dilemmas for you, if you could talk about that?

Payne: The dilemma for me was the extreme rhetoric of Farrakhan, the extreme rhetoric, which I had to acknowledge I thought was quite inflammatory. The other was to try to sort out the whole background of the Jesse thing and the "hymie" thing and to sort of vindicate Jesse on the grounds that this was not intended as a derogatory remark, and that it was blown up out of context. You're not on too sure ground even then when you do that, because always there's a feeling that you're trying to defend him, you know, against something. But I maintain that he had not offended the Jewish people and that it should not have been taken in the context that it was. So it was a real problem for me.

Currie: And you ended up by saying, "Farrakhan's inflammatory, but I don't think Jesse Jackson was being anti-Semitic."

Payne: Yes.

Currie: What kind of reaction did you get when you wrote that story?

Payne: Well, I didn't get any reaction from the Jewish community per se. There were some people who, however, said that they felt I was leaning over too much towards Jesse, and there were some people who were quite concerned about Jesse and his role in the affair. But that's an unfortunate thing. It's almost like what is the Geraldine Ferraro thing. It's just one of those—you know, there are entrapments all the way. You're walking through a minefield when you become a public candidate.

Currie: What other choices might have been available to you on that column that you wrote?

Payne: I don't know of any other choices. I had to deal with it. I had to deal with it up front. I couldn't afford not to write about it.

Currie: Why not?

Payne: Because it was an issue that concerned my readership. For me to duck it would have been cowardly. So I had to just deal completely with it and let the chips fall where they might.

Currie: Were you nervous about what you wrote?

Payne: Not nervous, but just really concerned. I wanted to do the fairest job possible, so I really kind of agonized about it. How can I handle this? It's such a sensitive thing.

Currie: Did the Final Call run that particular piece?

Payne: No, they didn't. Maybe at that time—I don't think I was writing for them. I think that came later. So, no, I didn't have any problem with them about that.

Currie: Have there been any other times when you had a dilemma that you had to deal with?

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Payne: I'm trying to think. There's some things that you just hate to approach because they're so sensitive, and you want to do the best job that you can. If you give me a moment, I'll think about it as you're talking.

Currie: Okay. Here's a quote from Essence magazine about you: "Some of her colleagues condemn Ethel for championing the causes of the little men at the expense of objectivity, one of journalism's touted canons that has no room for reporters' emotions or politics." Do you remember that article?

Payne: Yes.

Currie: How would you respond to that?

Payne: I stick to my firm, unshakeable belief that the black press is an advocacy press, and that I, as a part of that press, can't afford the luxury of being unbiased and not objective when it comes to the issues that really affect my people, and I plead guilty, because I think that I am an instrument of change. That's the way I have to put it. So if they think that I'm too biased, well, insofar as I'm pursuing the end cause of evoking some change, bringing about some change, that's the way I have to operate. That's the way I have to use my particular skill.

Currie: Also in that article, a little later on it reads: "Beyond compassion, she is to black people what the highly paid Capitol Hill lobbyists are to big business—a conduit of treasure, favors, and a friend in lofty places," which is saying a little bit of the same thing, only it's a little more—

Payne: They're putting me in the role of a lawyer.

Currie: Which you wanted to be.

Payne: A lawyer with his client. My client is the black people.

Currie: Is that a role you like?

Payne: It's a role I've assigned to myself.

Currie: When they say earlier, "some of her colleagues condemn Ethel," who are those colleagues, do you know?

Payne: Oh, there are a lot of people who—well, a lot of people who don't like to see shake-ups. A lot of people are the ones who want to go along and don't want to change. It disturbs them, it makes them uncomfortable. Well, I maintain that we are uncomfortable, we've been uncomfortable for more than 300 years, and if it takes a little bit more discomfort, then so be it; that's the way it is. But I don't see any way we can sit back and just enjoy the status quo, because the status quo doesn't stay the same. The status quo slips, and it usually slips to its original position.

Currie: But who do you think these colleagues would be who would be critical of you? Do you have any idea?

Payne: I can't name names. No, I wouldn't name names. But I know that some of them are people in the major media who have come out of the black press.

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Currie: Excuse me. I need to change the tape.

[End Tape 2, Side A; Begin Tape 2, Side B]

Currie: We have hit this several times before, but let's hit it again. I know that we talked about the fact that you never married and you said, at one point, "I was married to my job." You had one fiancé you left at the dock. Were there boyfriends over the years that you recall?

Payne: Oh, I dated a lot, yes, but no one serious.

Currie: What was a date that wasn't serious to you? What does that mean?

Payne: Good friends, but no ideas, no ambitions for the development into a permanent thing. Just we understood each other and were good company, and that was it.

Currie: Where did you meet these people?

Payne: You have to meet them when you're out on the hustings and looking for other things. You just come in contact with them, automatically. You don't go looking for them; it's just something that occurs in your line of work. You meet people.

Currie: Was there anybody that you recall as being particularly interesting?

Payne: Oh, most of them were interesting people. Most of them were really interesting people. But I knew, you know, that there was no percentage in my getting fluttery, you know, because in the first place, I don't think they were interested to that extent.

Currie: You don't think so?

Payne: No. And certainly I wasn't projecting myself that way either. But it was nice company.

Currie: Do you recall anyone that you want to talk about that was particularly important to you?

Payne: Well, in different ways, some of them have been and still are important, in different ways. Some of them have actually promoted me, helped to promote me, you know. They've brought me new aspects of things, and I can turn to them for advice even today. They were from interesting backgrounds, some of them. Some of them were just plain good guys; some of them were professionals. I might say it was a mixed bag, because I had some good white friends, too.

Currie: White men that you went out with?

Payne: Occasionally, yes.

Currie: Was that difficult'?

Payne: No, because in the climate now, it doesn't raise any eyebrows.

Currie: There are some people who don't think interracial dating is a good idea. Did you get any of that attitude from any of your friends?

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Payne: There's one thing that's a sore point with many black women, and that is the trend of black men who have become prominent, who have made it, and who have risen through the ranks, and then the first thing they do is either marry a white woman or live with a white woman. That is a sore point with black women. The reason for that is that with the decimation of the black male population, either through the criminal system or through the homosexual thing, there's so few choices for black women, young black women, so few selections. So they look around and they see—who shall I say?—some great celebrity, and here he's got this white chick. They feel wounded. I mean, they feel betrayed. It exacerbates the friction between black male and black female, exacerbates it. Particularly those black males who are very much involved, shall we say, in the struggle—I talk about the struggle—and who really make their professions off of the ramifications of the struggle. In other words, they're either a black institution, but they're married to white women or they're living with white women. That's where the feeling that there's a betrayal there.

There's one guy I know who, all his life, his whole professional life, he's either worked with the NAACP or the Urban League or some civil rights organization, or else he's gone into a university where it was predominantly black. His wife is red-haired, tall, very fair, blue-eyed, a white woman. And there's a hard time adjusting yourself to this kind of thing. They're ranting and raving about the injustices and what the "whitey" has done to black folks, leading the pack, you know, for that. We want to say, "Ah, shut up and get back!" You know [Laughter.] You know, "We know what you're doing. This is a put on," you know, It's a very sore issue.

Currie: How do you personally feel about it?

Payne: Oh, I'd like to be very liberal in my thinking and be generous and say, "We shouldn't have these hangups." But I admit that I sometimes get very exercised—not that it means anything personally to me, because I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking for a Harry Belafonte or somebody else, you know. That's not me. But I just wonder sometimes, "All these lovely black men, why can't they pick some nice black girl?" You know. What have they got against black women? And to me, sometimes it develops into a form of self-hatred, and I worry about it. It's so prevalent. It's so prevalent.

Currie: I wonder if I could ask you, too, is there any man that you think you might have married?

Payne: The guy I left waiting at the dock.

Currie: So he was the biggest contender?

Payne: Yes. We had an understanding, and I was going to keep the commitment, but then I think again, "Maybe that was the best thing, that we shouldn't have." It was the best thing.

Currie: What do you see for yourself over the next part? Do you want to project about what you're going to do with your life from here on end?

Payne: Well, I have to face the fact that I'm 76 years old, and that's a pretty good age.

Currie: It's a real good age.

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Payne: It's a good age. I have to be realistic enough to think that I don't have that much more time, even given the fact that I'm in good health. But what I want to do in the next five years is just really, really chronicle everything that I've done so I can leave a legacy. That's what I really want to do.

Currie: So do you think you'll be doing an autobiography?

Payne: I'm going to do something. I'm just going to put it down, and if somebody wants to refine it and do something with it, maybe that's good. Maybe that's the thing. In fact, that's what you're doing now.

Currie: I'm helping you write your autobiography.

Payne: Yes! [Laughter.]

Currie: You have a lot of pages, several hundred pages to draw from.

Payne: Yes.

Currie: That's a big project. Also, I think before we went on tape, we were talking about you basically still have to make a living.

Payne: Oh, yes. And I will be. I will be, as long as I'm active, I will be working, and I'll be doing something. I'll be into some project, and I'll be doing something. For instance, this morning—and I thought to myself after I talked with Dr. Jones, "Oh, Lord, here I am in another project." But you see, I'm so issue oriented, I just have to, I have to get into it. I have to jump into it with both feet, because I'm concerned, as I've said to you many times, I am really concerned about the future for young black Americans. I really am. I just am disturbed about the fact—and she gave a very gloomy prediction this morning. She said even with the best of effort, she thinks it will be at least 35 years before we catch up.

Currie: Do you think that's right?

Payne: Well, I hate to make that gloomy a projection, but when I consider all the things that are the negatives, I think she may be right. I don't want to hurry, but I don't think I'll live to see some of the accomplishments.

Currie: But you have had an incredibly interesting life, too.

Payne: I have, and I'm very grateful for that. I think I've had a charmed life, so to speak.

Currie: Why do you say "charmed?"

Payne: Because I've been able to be such an eye-witness to so many profound things and so many changes, and I've lived through it and I've witnessed. I've had a box seat on history, and that's a rare thing.

Currie: Is there anything you would change? I think I've asked you this before, but I'll ask you again.

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Payne: No, I wouldn't change anything. The only thing that I wish is that I had a greater outlet to project some of my ideas, my theories. I'm hoping that should I put together this, that it can get published, because I think it can be useful to a good many young people coming along.

Currie: When you write your autobiography, what would you want people to say about it?

Payne: To say about me?

Currie: Right. About you. About your autobiography, your life.

Payne: Well, I would like to feel that they saw me as an agent for change. That's the way I would sum it up, that I fought all of my life to bring about change, to correct the injustices and the inequities in the system.