Frank E. Bolden

Last updated

Franklin Eugene Bolden, Jr., was an American journalist best known for his work as a war correspondent during World War II when he was one of only two accredited African American war correspondents. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Frank Bolden was born in Washington, Pennsylvania on December 24, 1912, the son of the city's first African American mail carrier. [1] After graduating from Washington High School, Bolden attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he was the first African American member of the marching band. He joined Alpha Phi Alpha during his time at Pitt, and graduated in 1934 with a Bachelor of Science. Although he received high grades at Pitt, his application to University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine was denied on account of his race. [2] Bolden was also rejected for a teaching position with Pittsburgh Public Schools, since they did not hire African American teachers at that time. In 1960, Bolden married Nancy Travis. [1]

Pittsburgh Courier

Bolden began as a stringer for the Pittsburgh Courier while he was still an undergraduate student at Pitt. He covered Pittsburgh sports for extra income during this time. [1] After graduation, rather than moving to the South to teach, Bolden accepted a job with the Pittsburgh Courier as a general assignment reporter. [2] In those years, much of his work focused on Wylie Avenue, which was the center of African American social life and culture in Pittsburgh at this time. For this coverage, he met famous musicians including Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie and Billy Eckstine. [3] Bolden also wrote of the grittier side of Hill District life, saying “Wylie Avenue: the only street in America that begins with a church and ends with a jail," and referring to prostitutes as “sisterhood of the nocturnal order.” [1] After World War II, Bolden refused job offers from Life Magazine and The New York Times, instead returning to work for the Pittsburgh Courier, which was the leading African American paper at that time. He was promoted to city editor in 1956 and left near the end of the paper's decline in 1962. [1]

War correspondent

Upon the United States' entrance into World War II, the editors of the Pittsburgh Courier nominated Bolden to be an official war correspondent, [1] and because of his college degree, he was selected. Bolden and a New York City journalist, Edgar Rousseau, were the only two accredited black journalists. [2] He travelled in Europe and Asia, covering the heroism and victories of African American troops, including the 92nd Infantry Division and soldiers working on the Burma Road. Bolden once told an interviewer: "White America was convinced that Negro soldiers under fire would be cowards and turn and run, that is why I went over." [3] In 1945, his writing attracted the attention of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, who invited Bolden to visit him at his home, where Bolden stayed for two weeks. [2] This prompted a similar offer from Jawaharlal Nehru, at whose home Bolden stayed for twelve days. Also in 1945, Bolden interviewed Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek. [3]

National journalism

After leaving the Courier, Bolden wrote for The New York Times as a general-assignment reporter. Next, he worked for NBC News, where he reported for The Today Show and The Huntley-Brinkley Report . In 1964, while in San Francisco covering the Republican National Convention for NBC, Bolden got an impromptu interview with Barry Goldwater. According to Bolden, while Goldwater did agree to the interview, he was a bigot and said, "I didn't know [news organizations] hired you people." [2] [3]

Return to Pittsburgh

In 1964, Bolden returned to Pittsburgh to be the assistant director of information and community relations for the Pittsburgh Board of Education. He held that position until he retired in 1981. Bolden was also an unofficial historian of the African American community of Pittsburgh, leaving behind many interviews and research. Bolden died at age 90 on August 28, 2003. [1]

Frank E. Bolden Papers

The Archives Service Center at the University of Pittsburgh houses the Frank E. Bolden Papers. The collection dating from 1930 to 1967 contains documents his career as journalist, reporter and city editor of the Pittsburgh Courier and his war correspondence. Contents of the collection include: dating between 1930 and 1967, includes college and university class lecture notes and lab books, letters, drafts of newspaper articles, memos, photographs, and newspaper clippings. [4]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Stone</span> Tuskegee Airman and journalist (1924–2014)

Charles Sumner "Chuck" Stone, Jr. was an American pilot, newspaper editor, journalism professor, and author. He was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and was the first president of the National Association of Black Journalists, serving from 1975 to 1977. Passionate about racial issues and supportive of many liberal causes, he refused to follow any party line, "but called the issues as he saw them."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harrison Salisbury</span> American journalist

Harrison Evans Salisbury, was an American journalist and the first regular New York Times correspondent in Moscow after World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Schuyler</span> American author (1895–1977)

George Samuel Schuyler was an American writer, journalist, and social commentator known for his outspoken political conservatism after repudiating his earlier advocacy of socialism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethel L. Payne</span> American journalist

Ethel Lois Payne was an American journalist, editor, and foreign correspondent. Known as the "First Lady of the Black Press," she fulfilled many roles over her career, including columnist, commentator, lecturer, and freelance writer. She combined advocacy with journalism as she reported on the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s. Her perspective as an African American woman informed her work, and she became known for asking questions others dared not ask.

Malvin Russell "Mal" Goode Sr. was an African-American television journalist and news correspondent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African American newspapers</span> Newspapers serving African American communities

African American newspapers are news publications in the United States serving African American communities. Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm started the first African American periodical, Freedom's Journal, in 1827. During the Antebellum South, other African American newspapers sprang up, such as The North Star, founded in 1847 by Frederick Douglass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Ormes</span> American cartoonist

Jackie Ormes was an American cartoonist. She is known as the first African-American woman cartoonist and creator of the Torchy Brown comic strip and the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger panel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John H. Sengstacke</span> American businessman (1912–1997)

John Herman Henry Sengstacke was an American newspaper publisher and owner of the largest chain of African-American oriented newspapers in the United States. Sengstacke was also a civil rights activist and worked for a strong black press, founding the National Newspaper Publishers Association in 1940, to unify and strengthen African-American owned papers. Sengstacke served seven terms as president of the association, which by the early 21st century had 200 members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wallace Terry</span> American historian

Wallace Houston Terry, II was an African-American journalist and oral historian, best known for his book about black soldiers in Vietnam, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War (1984), which served as inspiration for the 1995 crime thriller Dead Presidents and the Spike Lee's 2020 war drama Da 5 Bloods.

The Pittsburgh Courier was an African American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the Courier was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States.

Frank Tillman Durdin was a longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times. During his career, Durdin reported on the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the collapse of European colonial rule in Indo-China, and the emergence of the People's Republic of China. He was the first American journalist granted a visa to reenter China in 1971.

William Gardner Smith was an American journalist, novelist, and editor. Smith is linked to the black social protest novel tradition of the 1940s and the 1950s, a movement that became synonymous with writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Willard Motley, and Ann Petry. Smith's third book, South Street (1954), is considered to be one of the first black militant protest novels. His last published novel, The Stone Face (1963), in its account of the Paris massacre of 1961, "stand[s] as one of the few representations of the event available all the way up until the early 1990s".

Percival Leroy (P.L.) Prattis was an American journalist. He was the city editor of the Chicago Defender, the most influential African-American weekly newspaper in the U.S. at the beginning of World War I. Later, he spent 30 years at the Pittsburgh Courier, another influential black paper, rising up to become executive editor.

Hazel B. Garland was a journalist, columnist and newspaper editor. She was the first African-American woman to serve as editor-in-chief of a nationally circulated newspaper chain. Born into a farming family, she was the eldest of 16 children. Although a bright and capable student, she dropped out of high school at her fathers instigation, and spent time working as a maid in order to provide financial assistance to her family.

Trezzvant William Anderson was an American journalist, publicist, and war correspondent.

Eugene Gordon was a journalist, editor, fiction writer, World War I officer, and social activist. He cofounded and edited the Harlem Renaissance literary magazine Saturday Evening Quill and edited a magazine put out by the Boston John Reed Club. He wrote primarily on subjects related to racial discrimination and social justice. He published some fiction under pseudonyms, using Egor Don and Clark Hall and Frank Lynn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irvine Garland Penn</span>

Irvine Garland Penn was an American educator, journalist, and lay leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was the author of The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, published in 1891, and a coauthor with Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and Ferdinand Lee Barnett of The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbia Exposition in 1893. In the late 1890s, he became an officer in the Methodist Episcopal Church and played an important role advocating for the interests of African Americans in the church until his death.

The Associated Negro Press (ANP) was an American news service founded in 1919 in Chicago, Illinois by Claude Albert Barnett. The ANP had correspondents, writers, reporters in all major centers of the black population in the United States of America. It supplied news stories, opinions, columns, feature essays, book and movie reviews, critical and comprehensive coverage of events, personalities, and institutions relevant to black Americans. As the ANP grew into a global network. It supplied the vast majority of black newspapers with twice weekly packets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fay M. Jackson</span>

Fay M. Jackson was an American journalist based in Los Angeles. Jackson founded the first Black news magazine on the West Coast, Flash, in 1928, and during the 1930s became the first Black Hollywood correspondent for the Associated Negro Press.

William Osbourne Dapping was an American journalist for The Auburn Citizen from 1905 to 1960. With The Auburn Citizen, Dapping began as a reporter before his promotion to managing editor in 1917. While holding the position, Dapping received a special award in the 1930 Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of the 1929 Auburn State Prison riot. Dapping remained in his editing role with The Auburn Citizen until he retired in 1960. Outside of journalism, Dapping was part of the United States Electoral College between 1932 and 1964.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pflug, Wendy. "Frank E Bolden Papers". Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh Library System, University of Pittsburgh. Archived from the original on 2013-06-17. Retrieved May 29, 2017; Collection Number: CAM.FHC.2011.01, collection received - 2010{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Brennan, Carol. "Frank E. Bolden". Gale Contemporary Black Biography. Gale Group, Inc, 2006. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Frank E. Bolden, 90; Journalist Became Historian of Black Life". Los Angeles Times. September 4, 2003. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "Request Rejected". digital.library.pitt.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-06-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.