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Charlayne Hunter-Gault

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Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Born
Alberta Charlayne Hunter

(1942-02-27)February 27, 1942(age 82)
Due West, South Carolina,U.S.
EducationWayne State University
University of Georgia(BA)
Washington University
OccupationJournalist
Notable credit(s)The New York Times
The New Yorker
Spouse(s)Walter Stovall (1963–1971)
Ronald Gault (1971–present)
Children2
Notes

Alberta Charlayne Hunter-Gault(born February 27, 1942) is an American civil rights activist, journalist and former foreign correspondent forNational Public Radio,CNN,and thePublic Broadcasting Service.Charlayne Hunter andHamilton Holmeswere the first African-American students to attend theUniversity of Georgia.[2]

Early life

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Alberta Charlayne Hunter was born inDue West, South Carolina,daughter of Col. Charles Shepherd Henry Hunter, Jr., U.S. Army, a regimental chaplain, and his wife, the former Althea Ruth Brown.[3][4]She became interested in journalism at the age of 12 after reading the comic stripBrenda Starr, Reporter.[2]

In 1955, one year after theBrown v. Board of Educationruling, Hunter was in eighth grade and was the only black student at an Army school in Alaska, where her father was stationed. Her parents divorced after spending the year in Alaska, and Hunter moved to Atlanta with her mother, two brothers, and maternal grandmother.[5]

After moving to Atlanta, she attendedHenry McNeal Turner High Schoolwhere she became editor-in-chief ofThe Green Light,the school's newspaper, assistant yearbook editor, and "Miss Turner High".[5]

In 1958, members of the Atlanta Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA) began to search for high-achieving African-American seniors who attended high schools in Atlanta. They were interested in jump-starting the integration of white universities in Georgia. They were searching for the best students so that universities would have no reason to reject them other than race. Hunter, along with Hamilton Holmes were the two students selected by the committee to integrateGeorgia State College(laterGeorgia State University) in Atlanta. However, Hunter and Holmes were more interested in attending theUniversity of Georgia.[6]

The two were initially rejected by the university on the grounds that there was no more room in the dorms for incoming freshmen who were required to live there.[5]That fall, Hunter enrolled at Wayne University (laterWayne State University) where she received assistance from the Georgia tuition program on the basis that there were no black universities in the state who offered a journalism program.[2]

Despite meeting the qualifications to transfer to the University of Georgia, she and Holmes were rejected every quarter due to the fact that there was no room for them in the dorms, but transfer students in similar situations were admitted.[5]This led to court caseHolmes v. Danner,in which the registrar of the university, Walter Danner, was the defendant.[7]After winning the case, Holmes and Hunter became the first two African-American students to enroll in the University of Georgia on January 9, 1961.[2]

Hunter graduated in 1963 with a B.A. in journalism.[8]

Career

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Hunter-Gault in 1975

In 1967, Hunter joined the investigative news team atWRC-TV,Washington, D.C.,and anchored the local evening news. In 1968, Hunter-Gault joinedThe New York Timesas a metropolitan reporter specializing in coverage of the urban black community. She joinedThe MacNeil/Lehrer Reportin 1978 as a correspondent, becomingThe NewsHour's national correspondent in 1983. She leftThe NewsHour withJim Lehrerin June 1997. She worked inJohannesburg,South Africa,asNational Public Radio's chief correspondent inAfrica(1997–99). Hunter-Gault left her post asCNN's Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent in 2005,[9]which she had held since 1999, although she still regularly appeared on the station and others, as an Africa specialist.

During her association withThe NewsHour,Hunter-Gault won additional awards: twoEmmysand aPeabodyfor excellence in broadcast journalism for her work onApartheid's People,aNewsHourseries on South Africa.[10]She also received the 1986 Journalist of the Year Award from theNational Association of Black Journalists,aCandace Awardfor Journalism from theNational Coalition of 100 Black Womenin 1988,[11]the 1990Sidney Hillman Award,theGood HousekeepingBroadcast Personality of the Year Award, the Women in Radio and Television Award and two awards from theCorporation for Public Broadcastingfor excellence in local programming. TheUniversity of GeorgiaAcademic Building is named for her, along withHamilton Holmes,as it is called the Holmes/Hunter Academic Building, as of 2001. She has been a member of thePeabody AwardsBoard of Jurorssince 2009[12]and serves on the Board of Trustees at the Carter Center.[13]

Hunter-Gault is author ofIn My Place(1992), a memoir about her experiences at the University of Georgia.

Personal life

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While in high school, at the age of 16, Hunter, along with two friends, converted toCatholicismafter being raised as a follower of theAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church.[2]

Shortly before she was graduated from theUniversity of Georgia,Hunter married a classmate, Walter L. Stovall, the writer son of a chicken-feed manufacturer.[3][14]The couple was first married in March 1963 and then remarried inDetroit,Michigan,on June 8, 1963, because they believed that, since he was white, the first ceremony might be considered invalid as well as criminal, based on laws about interracial marriages in the unidentified state in which they had been married.[15]Once the marriage was revealed, the governor of Georgia called it "a shame and a disgrace", while Georgia's attorney general made public statements about prosecuting the mixed-race couple underGeorgia law.[3][14][16]News reports quoted the parents of both bride and groom as being against the marriage for reasons of race.[3]Years later, after the couple's 1972 divorce, Hunter-Gault gave a speech at the university in which she praised Stovall, who, she said, "unhesitatingly jumped into my boat with me. He gave up going to movies because he knew I couldn't get a seat in the segregated theaters. He gave up going to the Varsity because he knew they would not serve me... We married, despite the uproar we knew it would cause, because we loved each other." Shortly after their marriage, Stovall was quoted as saying, "We are two young people who found ourselves in love and did what we feel is required of people when they are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together. We got married."[15]The couple had one daughter, Suesan Stovall, a singer (born December 1963).[17]

Following her divorce from Walter Stovall, Hunter married Ronald T. Gault, a black businessman who was then a program officer for theFord Foundation.Later, he became an investment banker and consultant. They have one son, Chuma Gault, an actor (born 1972).[18]The couple lived inJohannesburg, South Africa,where they also produced wine for a label called Passages.[18][19][20][21]After moving back to the United States, the couple maintain a home in Massachusetts, where they remain active supporters of the arts.[22]

Filmography

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  • Dare to Struggle... Dare to Win(1999)
  • Globalization & Human Rights(1998)
  • Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television(1993)
  • Summer of Soul(2021)

Publications

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  • "A Trip to Leverton"The New Yorker(April 24, 1965). A short story-memoir
  • "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment"The New Yorker60/52 (February 11, 1985): 28–29. Talk piece aboutDarrell Cabey,shot byBernhard Goetz
  • Hunter-Gault, Charlayne (July 27, 2020)."Hughes at Columbia".The Talk of the Town. December 30, 1967.The New Yorker.Vol. 96, no. 21. pp. 12–13.[23]
  • Valade, Roger M.; Kasinec, Denise (1996).The Schomburg Center Guide to Black Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present.Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Detroit: Gale Research. pp. 214–215.ISBN0-7876-0289-2.OCLC32924112.

Citations

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  1. ^"Stovall and McKay Family Papers".University of Georgia.RetrievedSeptember 18,2015.
  2. ^abcdeSynnott, Marcia G. (2008). "The African-American Women Most Influential in Desegregating Higher Education".The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education(59): 44–52.ISSN1077-3711.JSTOR25073895.
  3. ^abcdJohn H. Britton, "Charlayne's Secret Marriage to White Man",Jet,September 19, 1963. pp. 18–25.
  4. ^Stated onFinding Your Roots,December 12, 2017
  5. ^abcdPratt, Robert A. (December 1, 2002).We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia.University of Georgia Press.ISBN978-0-8203-2632-0.
  6. ^Collier-Thomas, Bettye (2001).Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement.NYU Press.
  7. ^"Holmes v. Danner, 191 F. Supp. 394 (M.D. Ga. 1961)".Justia Law.RetrievedMay 8,2020.
  8. ^Nash, Amanda (March 20, 2004)."Charlayne Hunter-Gault (b. 1942)".New Georgia Encyclopedia.Georgia Humanities Council; University of Georgia Press.RetrievedOctober 10,2015.
  9. ^Brian (March 28, 2005)."Charlayne Hunter-Gault Leaves CNN | TVNewser".Mediabistro.com.RetrievedMarch 1,2017.
  10. ^58th Annual Peabody Awards,May 1999.
  11. ^"CANDACE AWARD RECIPIENTS 1982-1990, Page 2".National Coalition of 100 Black Women.Archived fromthe originalon March 14, 2003.
  12. ^"George Foster Peabody Awards Board Members".The Peabody Awards. Archived fromthe originalon November 1, 2019.RetrievedMarch 1,2017.
  13. ^"Board of Trustees".The Carter Center.RetrievedMarch 1,2017.
  14. ^abRandall Kennedy,Interracial Intimacies(Random House, 2003), p. 100.
  15. ^ab"Nation: The Image".Time.September 13, 1963. Archived fromthe originalon December 22, 2008.
  16. ^Art Sears Jr., "Lawyer Asks to Defend Hunter's Mixed Race Marriage in Georgia Court",Jet,September 19, 1963, pp. 26 and 27
  17. ^Randall Kennedy,Interracial Intimacies(Random House, 2003), pp. 100 and 101.
  18. ^abPope Brock (December 7, 1992)."Charlayne Hunter-Gault".People.com.RetrievedMarch 1,2017.
  19. ^"Whatever Happened to Charlayne Hunter?",Ebony,July 1972, p. 138
  20. ^"Ronald T. Gault '62 - President | Grinnell College".Archived fromthe originalon May 28, 2010.Retrieved2011-01-08.
  21. ^"Charlayne Hunter-Gault - News Anchor, Activist, Civil Rights Activist, Radio Personality, Journalist".Archived fromthe originalon December 11, 2013.RetrievedMarch 1,2017.
  22. ^"Ronald T. Gault".The HistoryMakers.RetrievedMarch 1,2017.
  23. ^Online version is titled "Columbia's overdue apology toLangston Hughes".Originally published in the December 30, 1967 issue.

General and cited references

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