In Black America; A Tribute to the late Malvin "Mal" Goode

I'll see you all in tomorrow, bye. From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I think the black press is limited in many ways. First you need to understand. I don't know who you work for, but you were the white press. Yes.

And the white press has taken a great number of you, as I'm going to tell these youngsters this afternoon, most of you are token, wherever you are, radio station television, Max Robinson, Carol Simpson, these young people that are here representing the networks and whatnot. They're still token and whatnot. And many of them are under some illusion at all as well as not well with them, because every day something comes up with your job to remind you that you're black. The black press is limited because it's difficult for them to keep skilled, qualified, correspondence, journalists, because the white press will pick them up immediately so that when you look out in their newsroom of 50 reporters in a big newspaper like the Cincinnati Herald, for example, or whatever the Cincinnati Inquire, or the Cleveland paper, the Cleveland Plane dealer, one of those papers you look out in the newsroom, you see 40 reporters when they're off assignment or they're doing their reporting, maybe two or three of them are black and those are skilled.

Those are the best they could find from the schools of journalism who happen to be black. Melvin Russell Good, the first African-American correspondent, hired by a television network 9 September 12 in Pittsburgh, he was 87. After jobs as a probation officer and director of a local Pittsburgh YMCA and a member of the management staff of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority, Mel Good joined the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper in 1948. In 1949, he joined radio station KQV as a commentator. In 1950, he started a six-year-stand with his sister, the late Mary D. as a brother and sister news commentary team, on radio station WHOD and suburban Pittsburgh. In 1962, on the recommendation of his friend, the late baseball legend Jackie Robinson, he tried out for a job at ABC television and was hired at age 54. Good work for ABC for 11 years. As his United Nations correspondent, he covered the Cuban Missile Crisis, the aftermath

of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination and the poor people's march on Washington. I'm John A. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, a tribute to the late Melvin Russell Good in Black America. But the others goot primarily to black newspapers. The other thing is that black newspapers don't have the kind of income that it enables them to pay the times, pay $600 a week to a reporter as a base.

Many of them pay from $450 to $600 a week. Black newspapers are not in position, don't have the kinds of income. They don't get the kinds of advertising that permits them to hire skilled reporters even like you. Even black-owned radio stations can't pay the kind of salaries that I'm sure that you make with the station that you work for, but they do the best they can under the circumstances. Now, maybe they could do more, but I'm not in position to say that. I'm certainly not going to criticize the black press because I never would have gotten to ABC if it hadn't been for the pressure of the black church, the black press, the NAACP, and one key individual, Jackie Robinson, a great black ball player. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Good was a grandson of slaves who worked in the steel meals to pay his way through the University of Pittsburgh where he received a bachelor's degree in 1931. After college, he worked as a probation officer and director of a local YMCA and a

member of the management staff of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority. In 1948, he began working with the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper as a reporter. He worked for the Courier newspaper for 14 years. In 1949, he started his career in radio with station KQV, doing 15-minute news shows two nights a week. In 1950, he started a five-minute daily news program on station WHOD. In 1952, Good was named News Director. He and his late sister Mary D had the only brother and sister team in radio for six years. Good was the first African-American to hold membership in the National Association of Radio and TV News Directors. In 1962, he joined ABC Television as the first African-American network correspondent at the age of 54. Assigned to the United Nations, his first test was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Later, he covered the civil rights movement, the aftermath of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr. assassination, and the 1964 and 1968 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. In July of 1983, I spoke with Mr. Good at the National Convention of the NAACP. Well, it was by accident, I didn't decide to become a product of the depression. I took a pre-law course, and when I graduated from college in 1931, there was no chance of going to law school, and I just went to work as a janitor, a porter and a clothing store, stayed there about three and a half years, and then went back to graduate school in 1936. I got a job. I got an appointment at Juvenile Court, and from Juvenile Court to the YMCA and social work, from that to managing a housing project. And then in 1948, I had an opportunity to go with the Pittsburgh Courier, which then was the largest black publication in the world.

And I stayed with them for 14 years, but during those 14 years, the year after I went to the Courier, an opportunity came for me to do a 15-minute commentary two nights a week on the Pittsburgh radio station KQV. And I got into it eventually in the next year with both feet, and started doing news on another station almost on a full-time basis. I still worked for the Pittsburgh Courier doing some public relations and selling some advertising. You did many things with a black newspaper in those days. But I, so it was not, I didn't decide. It was by accident that I got into it. Then television finally decided, a American broadcasting company, that they would open up and would hire a black. So they went seeking somebody, and I was lucky enough to have been selected primarily because of my interest in the church, the black church, because of my friendship with

the late Jackie Robinson, the great ball player, and because of my being with the Pittsburgh Courier. I had a black newspaper which had a lot of political and social influence in this country. So I got into the ABC hired me as the first black to do a network newscast, which is a stroke of fortune, that's all. Was it difficult keeping the objectivity during the civil rights movement of the 60s? Certainly. I'm the grandson of slaves. I went to jail many times back in the late 40s and during the 50s, when I was working for the Pittsburgh Courier, when I was in radio, harassed by Pittsburgh and police in the Western Pennsylvania sector, many times because of the foul names that they call me. Nigger, what do you make of that left turn for? What do you speeden on? I'm an act of Boulevard, you black S-O-B, that's kind of thing, which I resented. And when I resented it, I was put in jail.

Now I was a fortunate black, fortunate Nigger in those days, because once they found out I was with the Pittsburgh Courier, then the pressure was off, but we used to sue them. And I didn't want any monetary gain, I just want what happened to me, I wanted to stop that happening from happening to other black people. But it was not an easy thing by a long shot. In this week's edition of the National Leader, Van Hook said the black press is not doing all he can to try to sue over the situation that's happening. The internal situation that's happening with the NAACP, is that so? I'm not totally in agreement with that. I think the black press is limited in many ways. First you need to understand, I don't know who you work for, but you were the white press. Yes. And the white press has taken a great number of you, as I'm going to tell these youngsters this afternoon, most of you are token, wherever you are, radio station, television, Max Robinson, Carol Simpson, these young people that are here representing the networks and whatnot.

They're still token and whatnot. And many of them are under some illusion at all as well as not well with them, because every day something comes up with your job to remind you that you're black. The black press is limited because it's difficult for them to keep skilled, qualified, correspondence, journalist, because the white press will pick them up immediately so that when you look out in their newsroom of 50 reporters in a big newspaper like the Cincinnati Herald, for example, or whatever the Cincinnati Enquirer, or the Cleveland paper, the Cleveland plane dealer, one of those papers. You look out in the newsroom, you see 40 reporters when they're off assignment or they're doing their reporting, maybe two, three of them are black. And those are skilled. Those are the best they could find from the schools of journalism who happen to be black. But the others go primarily to black newspapers.

The other thing is that black newspapers don't have the kind of income that it enables them to pay the times, pay $600 a week to a reporter as a base. Many of them pay from $450 to $600 a week. Black newspapers are not in position, don't have the kinds of income. They don't get the kinds of advertising that permits them to hire skilled reporters even like you. Even black-owned radio stations can't pay the kind of salaries that I'm sure that you make with the station that you work for. But they do the best they can under the circumstances. Now maybe they could do more, but I'm not in position to say that. I'm certainly not going to criticize the black press because I never would have gotten to ABC if it hadn't been for the pressure of the black church, the black press, the NAACP, and one key individual, Jackie Robinson, a great black ball player. Why is there a continual need for the national association for the advancement of color people? The best reason in the world is to take the figures.

I just gave all of you some figures about the number of elected officials. There are about 245 black mayors out of how many do you know, out of 18,000. There are about 5,100 black elected officials out of more than 500,000. I mean at every level, councilmen, school board members, county commissioners, freeholders as we have in New Jersey, congressmen. There are only 21 black congressmen, three women, and 18 black men, 21 in Congress, out of you know how many, 535, no black senators out of the 100, we used to have 180 broke. He wasn't reelected three years ago, out of 535, not only 21. In 1983, you asked me why there is still need for the NAACP, ask me, tell me, tell me how

many 100,000 a year executives are working down, are you a New Orleans, where are you from Austin, Texas? Austin, Texas, tell me how many 100,000 executives in that rich state you're from, the capital Austin, Texas, who are black? Tell me of the more than, I just saw Herb Capelos, a good friend of mine with ABC, but nightline, Ted Coppola, if I sound like a name dropper, fine, I work with Sam Donaldson who covers the White House, he makes $450,000 a year, I work with Ted Coppola, Ted Coppola makes a million dollars a year, I work with, how your reasoner, who makes a million dollars a year, Walter Cronkite's a personal friend of mine, he's income now retired is better than a million dollars a year, tell me how many blacks there are in that kind of money, there's only three that I know of, that are anywhere beyond the $500,000 mark, I'm not

sure of it, but I would suspect that it's Max Robinson, it is, it is, it Bradley was 60 minutes, maybe, maybe Carol Simpson, who is here, it might be, I doubt that, but think of the hundreds of them at the local level, Bill Burns and Pittsburgh, who makes about $250,000, you never heard of him, he's local and he's been there for 25, 26, 27 years, so what I'm saying is that when you ask me and that's a good question, make no mistake about it, I'm not being critical of you, I'm glad, either one of you would have asked me, you couldn't have asked me a better question in this discussion with you, why is there a need for an end of OECP, the very fact, the very fact that when I fly and I fly somewhere almost every week, I have seen, and I've been flying since 1947, I've been on thousands of flights all over the world, halfway around the world, Lufthansa, India Air, not Irish

airlines, but Delta, Pan American, Eastern, you name them, I have only seen in all the flying, I mean, black pilots I've seen, five, since 1947, that's 36 years ago, now Eastern has about 18, Delta Airlines maybe has 10, 12, Pan American might have two, Piedmont I think has one, maybe two, out of hundreds and hundreds of pilots, you see a lot of sturdises, sometimes there are four sturdises on a plane, two of my black, that's fine, I'm glad to see that, but what does a sturdis make, $250 a week, and the privilege for her family to travel free and what not, maybe $300 a week, which is what, $15,000 a year, it's still small money,

I'm not demeaning them because those girls are marvelous, they do a great service and they ought to be paid a lot more than money, the same is true with school teachers, I graduated from University of Pittsburgh 52 years ago when no black teachers were there, they have over 5,000 professors now at the University of Pittsburgh in 1983, less than 100 of them, only two of them as far as I know are department heads, less than 100 of them are black today, and you ask me why, the only place where there's any modicum of equality for blacks is where in the world of sports, in basketball, 66 percent, professional football, 44 percent, professional baseball, 38 percent black Cuban and Puerto Rican, why, why is it, and put this in your story, where you, you say to, you say to, you ask me, I'll ask the question before

you ask me, why is it in sports, it's because they're trying to win a game, and the only way you can win a game is to put the best players, so you watch the NBA playoffs between Los Angeles, and the Philadelphia Sixers, and at one stage of the game, only 10 can play at one time, five on each team, but at several times at stages, very stages of those five or six games, four games that they played, they beat him four straight, at some, several stages of those games, nine of the 10 players were black, you're in the South, look at this area where blacks could not even go to the University of Louisiana, or Louisiana State, or the University of Georgia, Mississippi State, North Mississippi State, and up in Knoxville, the University of Tennessee, it was unthinkable, 25 years ago, for a black student, even to go to the schools, now they go searching all over

the country for them, and you wind up at the University of Alabama, where 20 years ago, Wallace stood in the door to keep two black students, and then you wind up with a starting five of their basketball team is black, and half of their football team are offensive and defensive players, half of them. Mr. Good, are we regressing on our civil and human rights here in the 80s? America? Sure, we're there, sure they're regressing, and America's regressing because we allow, we allow America, that's why you need to vote, that's why you need picketing and demonstrating, that's why you need to have when you boycott the use of your dollar bill and the use of your vote. Reagan is making some concessions now, I have nothing particularly against Mr. Reagan, I don't think Reagan is God, I don't think in many ways Reagan is any different in Carter when it comes to this whole issue of black rights, Carter only did as much as he had to do, he could have done a lot more

because 96% of the black vote went to him in 1976, and he lost a percentage of it in 1980, so he lost the presidency. But when you ask me about regressing, sure there is regression because you allow it, two of your colleagues here happen to be from another race, which is not important to you know to me, because I don't deal in whites and blacks and Indians and colors and what a ideal in humanity, in people, but I'm sure they will tell you, I'm sure their parents will tell you that if they had been subjected to the same restrictions to which my children, and I have six marvelous children, all out of college, but they didn't have the same chances that these two young ladies have had when it came for opportunity, now I think my grandchildren, I think it's going to be better if I live and if their parents, what I use expression stay on the wall and guard against the retrogression that certainly takes place when we let down our guard,

you can't afford to let down your guard. Why should black youth become involved with the NACP? If they're going to continue this fight until there's no need for the NAACP, you got to keep on fighting, the NAACP has to keep on fighting until one day we won't need it, and one day we won't need it, I won't live to see it, you won't live to see it, but one of these days if my nation survives, if we don't let the nuclear holocaust destroy us, one day we're going to look back, look back like Branch Ricky, that name doesn't mean anything to you all, but he's the white man who brought Jackie Robinson in the baseball 36 years ago in 1947 and he was condemned, called nigger lover, everything you can think of, but he told me one time, about 1956, I know him so well, he lived in Pittsburgh where I was living, but in 1956 he said to me, Mel, one of these days we're

going to look back and wonder what the issues were all about. Maybe you all remember, I'm sure you don't, I'm sure at 19, you can't possibly remember a time when a black person would come downtown in New Orleans, you would remember here, and could buy a sandwich, if you went in a five and ten, you could buy it, but you had to carry it out, you couldn't stand it to counter, you certainly couldn't sit down and eat it, I'm staying at the Fremont, I don't think that's any big deal a bit to Fremont, I stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago Illinois eight years ago, where the room was 85 dollars a night, it's 110, 115, I don't think I stayed at the finest hotels in all the world, in Hamburg, New Jersey, in Hamburg, Germany, where you put your shoes out at night and next wine, they were all shined and whatnot, where you went down and you got bowls of strawberries for breakfast and whatnot, I don't think it's any big deal to live at the Fremont, but there was

a time it's an old hotel in New Orleans, there was a time when I couldn't have gone in the front door, you know why, if I had ten thousand dollars in my pocket, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, maybe 15, not 20 years ago, I couldn't have stayed at the Fremont, so I've lived to see that, those changes come about. Mr. Good, what do you attribute to South leadership in the election of black officials over the north or the west? Oh man, that's so easy, because they decided thousands of blacks decided to register and vote, thousands, and they didn't do this thing of two things, there's another thing I think we ought to say, that, and not because the two of you are here, but it's, I think it's worth noting that there was, there were a lot of decent white people in the South, I said many of them, many of them said to me in Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama,

as I've traveled in the last 25 years, many of them said, you know what, we do this a long time before, we live next door to each other, we didn't go to the same church, but we live next door to each other, but how do you say to black people didn't elect or any more, yeah, there's the mayor of New Orleans, black people are not going to elect Wilson, my name's sake, we know each other, but good, he's going to be elected, black people are not going to elect him, black people and white people, call him decent white people, call him fair minded white people, call him what you will, but they're people who look at the facts, they looked at the facts a couple months ago and said, we can't have, we can't have another Rizzo era, we can't have that, we can't have a man who is mayor who would go down and strip seven or eight men naked in public because they happen to be black, he wouldn't have done white men like that, you don't, you remember that? Yeah, yeah, we can't have

that, Philadelphia is too fine a city, you see, I grew up on the other side of that state on the western side in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I know Philadelphia, I know Mount Erie, I know the main line, I stayed at the Benjamin Franklin hotel many times, I know the attitude of people there, wonderful people in Philadelphia, not wonderful white people, wonderful people, black and white, and they were embarrassed with some of the things that Rizzo did, so they've nominated Wilson good, but Wilson, black people can't elect him, I know the percentage of blacks living in Philadelphia, it's very high, but at the same time I also know that there's an element of decency in this nation, it's not all in the north, it's not all in the east, I'm, you know, those of us up there in the eastern part of the country, I live in New Jersey, I work out in New York at the United Nations, we got, we are always pointing south, you know that, or how they do down south, now south is making a fool of the north and the east and the west, when it comes to decent human racial relations.

Some time ago, out on the country road, a rich man in his brand new Cadillac got lost, a little farmer boy at his bare feet in the straw hat on a hot day, walking down the road and he said to him, young man, I'm lost, can you tell me how to get to the main highway, he said no, sir? He said, young man, I don't have a compass, but I'm trying to go north, do you know which way is north? He said no, sir? He said, young man, I've been lost so long that I'm low in gas, do you know where the nearest gas station is? He said no, sir? He said, you don't know very much, do you? Young man, he said no, but I ain't lost. I, you know, I'm pleased, I'm pleased to come

this afternoon. You know why? Because I don't think you're lost. I think you have a good idea of where you're going. I heard one of the young people say earlier that her brother was attending the University of Pittsburgh yet. That's my school, but I'm not proud of it because of some of the things they have done recently in sports, and also because in the days when I was there, I couldn't have dreamed of participating in any sports, no playing in the band, no singing in the choir, never dreamed that I would have been able to teach there, but I've lived to see all that come about. The late Melvin Russell Good, the first African-American television network correspondent, dead at age 87. If you have a question or comment or suggestions, ask the future in Black America programs. Write us. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. Views and

opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBA technical producer David Alvarez, I'm John E. Johansson Jr. Thank you for joining us today, and please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John E. Johansson Jr. Join me this week on in Black America. Tell me how many blacks there are,

and that kind of money. There's only three that I know that are anywhere beyond the $500,000 mark. I'm not sure of it, but I would suspect that it's Max Robinson. It Bradley was 60 minutes. Attribute to the late Melvin Russell Good this week on in Black America.