Sam Pressley was elected secretary of ABJ in June 1974. He was interviewed in 2017 and 2018 by Sherry L. Howard. 

                                                                          ____________________________________________

“Even though it has been reported that the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists was founded in 1973, we started having meetings in ’73. I arrived at the Evening & Sunday Bulletin in Jan. 29, 1973. (The formation of the Association of Black Journalists was announced in a press release on Oct. 31, 1974.)

Among those active were Claude Lewis, Elmer Smith, Al Brown at the Bulletin; Acel Moore at the Inquirer; Chuck (Stone) over at the Daily News; Tyree Johnson at the Daily News; Francine Cheeks, a reporter at WCAU; Joe Donovan, a reporter at KYW radio.

We started talking about our common concerns – the low number of Blacks in the media from print to broadcast. We also were concerned about the way Blacks and the Black community in general were covered, often in a negative way. If you read the Inquirer and the Daily News, especially the Daily News, and to a certain extent the Philadelphia Tribune, it was always about crime.

(Other journalists involved in the early meetings were George Strait, and Jim Johnson at the Bulletin. Others around at the time: Jack Jones, Cynthia Tucker, Laura Murray, Jon Miller, Jan Gorham, Vernon Odom. Sonny Driver of Scoop newspaper was an early member of ABJ.)

(A group of black journalists were in Washington on Dec. 12, 1975, and were among the founding members of the National Association of Black Journalists.) The reason why I didn’t attend that session in DC was that we had an announcement regarding our activities, and I was the de- facto press secretary. We had put out a press release and I was left behind to make sure the release went out, and if there were any questions, I would get those questions and funnel them to Claude or Chuck or Acel (Moore).

Sometimes (we met) at Claude Lewis’ house in Willingsboro (NJ). We met from time from time at Chuck’s house in Bryn Mawr (PA).

We met at the (Institute for Black Ministries), then the Progress Plaza building, second floor. We realized journalists among us would be more comfortable meeting at an offsite place. We also realized there were people who would come and tell us things – we used to get a lot of good stories, by the way. When I say stories, I mean good-reporting stories, people would tell us about things that were about to happen or were happening. We were able to put that perspective in what we wrote.

At the Bulletin

In 1973 and part of ‘74, we started having meetings at the Bulletin. The folks there – Claude Lewis, Elmer Smith, Al Brown, a woman named Myra, Don Camp, we started talking amongst ourselves. We realized that we needed to negotiate in-house with the Bulletin. Claude was the good guy. I came across as the militant, so they would rather have dealt with Claude than me. So that was our co-conspirator strategy.

We talked to the Bulletin about the fact that if you read the Bulletin, you would swear that the only Blacks who were around in Philly and the Philly area were the folks that committed crimes or the people who headed up a social organization or a preacher. At the Bulletin, we wanted to get the hiring of more Black reporters, writers, editors, photographers.

Teddy Pendergrass performs at banquet

(At the 1977 banquet), our featured performer was Teddy Pendergrass. We had not gotten our act together about how to put on a good party. We had this long-ass meeting in the ballroom. Teddy got restless. He came out of his dressing room with his dresser. I remember to this day Teddy is walking into the ballroom getting ready to perform. His dresser is fixing up his vest. He got tired of waiting. As a matter of fact, when he got on stage, he made some reference to that. He went right into one of his signature songs.

We were very professional, but we took the time to party, and in partying we realized we ushered in another area of networking.

A serious mission

We had various committees within ABJ. One of those committees included a community relations committee where we reached out to different organizations and we told them about how to get coverage. We told them to put together what we called a press release, announce your event. We gave them a crash course in putting a headline on your paper.

We started putting out a newsletter, press releases. We went from that to having quasi-workshops on media access. We originated the awards program and media-access sessions.

We started scholarships; our events, the fees benefited our scholarships. We lobbied for Acel to be on the (Inquirer’s) editorial board.

(ABJ became incorporated) because we wanted to utilize money that we raised from our banquets. We also realized we needed to think even bigger than that. From the dances we used to sponsor at the Fox Trap, we started raising money for scholarships. But we realized we needed to be incorporated.

We would invite politicians and union leaders and other people to talk to us. One of the politicians we were especially concerned about was Frank Rizzo. He was the one who infamously stripped Black Panthers naked and had their picture in the Daily News. (The ABJ invited Rizzo to a mayoral forum in 1975 and its third annual awards banquet in 1978, but he declined both times.)

Claude was very faithful. He looked after us, counseled us, mentored us. … People like George Strait gave us credibility alongside Claude and Chuck. You turn on Action News (Channel 6) – George Strait. You listen to KYW radio, Joe Donovan. Joe Donovan was practically the voice of KYW radio.

We became a recruitment tool for them (the media and Temple University, where ABJ was pushing for more Black faculty and students).

When we went to the Inquirer, when we went to Temple, when we went to the Bulletin, when we went to all of these places, their whole shitty answer was, ‘Well we don’t know of any Black folks in the field.’ That’s when we became the clearinghouse. We started collecting resumes and turning them directly over to these folks and then we monitored that process.

We were involved in challenging folks’ licenses. Channel 6, it was only after some negotiations that they brought in more people to be on the air. They hired some people behind the scene. Reggie and Acel worked on that aspect of what we were trying to do (along with Black Communicators Inc.)

There were people in the organization, they had some pet projects. Acel and Reggie, they were very keen on wanting a television program. That’s how they got “Black Perspective on the News.”

I first met Acel during a parade, St. Patrick’ Day Parade or one of the others. He was covering it for the Inquirer. I was covering it for the Bulletin and that’s when we got to talking. He invited me to be on “Black Perspective on the News.”

ABJ logo

We wanted to create a letterhead, envelope and a symbol now known as a logo. At first, we were playing around with the letters “ABJ” where the “A” would be a combination of the “B and J.” Acel and Chuck and to a certain degree, Reggie Bryant and Jerry Mondesire, they lobbied for having a logo that would emphasize our African roots – meaning that we were Black Americans. We might have come from Cuba. We might have come from Mexico, but we had African roots.

(The logo was designed by artist Earl E. Davis Jr. Barbara Johnson, wife of member Tyree Johnson, designed and sewed the banner.)

Pushback from whites

When we were meeting informally the word went out that we were meeting. People had all those conjectures. Why are those Black people meeting? Oh, oh, they want to start something. It was like, we just want to organize.

We got pushback from white reporters. You know, we should join them. We said we had two basic common overriding concerns, which is also the mantra for NABJ: We wanted to increase our numbers in the media, and number 2, we have a concern about the way Blacks are portrayed and covered by the news media.

That’s why ‘Black Perspective on the News’ was not only groundbreaking, but it was very instrumental in having all those Black faces on television covering the news.

We used to get threats all the time. Claude would get threats, Chuck would get threats. We would get our share of threats, letters, phone calls.

Resistance from some Black journalists

Some of the Black people were reluctant to join us because they didn’t want the word to get out that they were members of the Association of Black Journalists.

We made sure we were always professional in what we were doing. We knew that there might have been one or two people at our meetings who would go back and report on what we were doing. We pretty much confirmed this. We had this meeting, and pretty much what we discussed they knew about it. Our editors knew what we were doing.

We were always above-board, but we didn’t mince our words. We had agendas.

Fighting among themselves

We had the moderate wing of ABJ and we had the militant wing. The militant wing was Chuck, myself, Acel and Francine Cheeks. The moderate wing were those folks who did their thing. We got along. We argued quite a bit.

Back in the day, we used to beat each other. First of all, you had all of these strong personalities. Francine Cheeks, strong personality. Chuck, strong personality. Claude, who would come across as soft, was a strong personality. You had Reggie Bryant, Oh My God! Acel Moore, strong. We used to have arguments – I won’t go into a lot of the details – but we would have arguments, but you know what, in the end we were on the same page for what we wanted to bring about.

Forming ABJ

We started talking (and said) Ok, let’s start putting some things on paper as to our common concerns. And the common concerns are these 10 points that you see there (on the press release).

That’s when we were meeting informally but we were very aware that in order for the outside world to take us seriously we had to be formally organized. At that formally organized meeting we had to give ourselves a name.

We were the Association of Black Journalists because we were the first formal organization of Black journalists in the country. And from there we had the distinction of being the founding for the umbrella organization the NABJ.

Our bylaws were put together prior to us becoming incorporated. The logo and bylaws were done (during) 1974.

Those programs (objectives/purpose in the 1974 press release) were derived out of meetings that we had over a period of time with folks who gave their input. We had accumulated a list of journalists. (The press release stated that there were 76 working black journalists in the Greater Philadelphia area).

We would come to meetings and we would say do you know anybody in Delaware, do we have the folks at the Tribune. When we would cover an event, we were very attuned to find out whether there were any Black reporters present. We had a standing order. We would introduce ourselves, get their names and contact information, and invite those folks to our meetings.

Any time we were watching television, listening to the radio, the same thing. That’s how that list of 76 names came about. We did it in a very organized scientific way.

The ones on television were reluctant. When George Strait came to town, he straight up wanted to be a part of us because George Strait was a straight-up radical. 

It was very difficult for us to get folk in the broadcast media to join us, except Joe Donovan. Joe Donovan was sorta like one of the deans of Black journalists at KYW. He joined us. Then you had Francine Cheeks. We were all part of that radical wing and the people you see there on the executive board (officers who were listed on a 1974 press release about formation of ABJ).

Chuck Stone had his column, Claude was reluctant to be the president. We made Chuck the president. We made it very clear to him we needed name recognition. Claude had name recognition, Chuck had name recognition. So that’s why we went with that.

Acel Moore was not an officer per se. He was chairman of the ABJ Equal Opportunity Committee. His task was to be in contact with the Temple University School of Communications to try to recruit more Black students.

Acel, Claude and Chuck sent out letters to lack journalists

That was true. I believe (the meeting was) at the Institute for Black Ministries. That’s where we started meeting in a very formal way. We were looking for a place to meet and to invite others, too, that was close to transportation.

I would give them credit for that (the letters) because while we were negotiating with the editors at the Bulletin to hire more of us, Acel was trying to do the same thing there at the Inquirer. When Chuck came to town, he was high profile as a columnist.

It was very apparent to us that we needed high-profile Black folks to be able to attract other Black folks. In other words, Sam Pressley didn’t have a name per se or Francine Cheeks didn’t have a name per se. Pamela Haynes didn’t have a name per se.

Those were the three people (Chuck, Acel and Claude) who had name recognition and could attract other folks.”