Tyree Johnson was the third president of ABJ. He was interviewed in 2015, 2016 and 2020 by Sherry L. Howard.

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I started at the Daily News in September 1972. Chuck Stone came in the early few months of ‘73. Before that they started an organization, the Black Communicators, it just didn’t work out. When Chuck came in, he was kind of mentoring me. I just followed him.

They were holding meetings. They were held over the bookstore in Progress Plaza off Broad Street on the second floor.

They decided, ‘hey what we going to name it,’ and they said Black professional journalists. Chuck said journalists are professional, so we don’t have to say professional. I remember that conversation. Chuck was really the leader … there was a little, very slight friction about who’s going to lead it because it had another great Black (columnist) Claude Lewis. I can’t remember anything he said, but he was instrumental in forming the group.

I remember Chuck saying drop the professional and say Association of Black Journalists. Chuck was really the driving force.

There were four people who were really dominant: There was Chuck, Claude, Acel (Moore) and Reggie Bryant. There was a good (Philadelphia) Bulletin presence. Me and Chuck were the only Blacks at the Daily News at the time.

“I never thought that I was really a founder. I was there for all the meetings, but I think I was the first one to sign up. They needed somebody to sign up and I was one of the first to sign up. So I always call myself a charter member.

I had a feeling from experience of the Black Communicators, which was dead, that this organization was going to make it. Why? Because of Chuck. A strong-willed man, really. Great organizer. He knows how to soothe people over. You know something, when he hated somebody it was really for a reason.

(There were) a lot of big egos there. Some of the meetings got so bad that two of the members went out to (get into) a fistfight, and one of them came back bloody. That’s how bad it was, but he always stayed as a member. It was really something.

We were doing our (second banquet in 1977). Great banquet. We had Teddy Pendergrass who was gonna sing for us, entertain for free. It cost us about $3,000. … He brought an entourage of people who ate and drank us out of the profits that we were gonna get.

It was a great banquet. We still talk about it. Jerry (Mondesire) still thought that was a great, great banquet. (At some point, Brahin Ahmaddiya and Claude Lewis were discussing the menu.) “Brahin said, ‘Well, what are you gonna do with people who don’t eat meat?’ And Claude said, ‘Sit (them) next to me.’”

My wife (Barbara) did the first banner. Did it for the banquet. The greatest banquet I’ve ever been to. She made the logo, the face, the same logo as today designed by Earl (Davis). It kinda looked a little homemade.  She cut the letters out, sewed them in and hung it up. It was kinda heavy. Brown background, I think. I don’t know whatever happened to it. We had it at several picnics and stuff like that.

We ran summer programs for kids at 19^th and Girard. Berean School gave us space free for a two-week program for young kids who wanted to learn about journalism. Joe Davidson ran it. He would take his vacation and we paid (him). That was the only expense we had and we’d buy the kids trans passes.

Most times we reached in our pockets to pay for things but I think we had enough in our treasury to pay Joe.

Funny thing about it, we had boys and girls to go to it, right. We’d give them all trans passes and … only the girls would show up. It was unbelievable. We ran it for two years under my administration. We had the picnic, we had the banquet, but it was not as nice as (’77 banquet).

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s administration: The only two journalists who showed up were me and Elmer Smith. Acel and others, no. They maybe showed up at the beginning until they saw what it was all about. Every meeting was about MOVE. It just dissipated; it just died. I think (Mumia) noticed it, too, and he wasn’t going to run again.

In the elections in November, Joe became president-elect and Mumia got arrested. Joe took over and Joe handled everything really nice.”