Charlayne Hunter-Gault

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox person

Alberta Charlayne Hunter-Gault (born February 27, 1942) is an American civil rights activist, journalist and former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, CNN, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were the first African-American students to attend the University of Georgia.<ref name=":0" />

Early life

Alberta Charlayne Hunter was born in Due 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.<ref name=Jet>John H. Britton, "Charlayne's Secret Marriage to White Man", Jet, September 19, 1963. pp. 18–25.</ref><ref name=fdr1>Stated on Finding Your Roots, December 12, 2017</ref> Her mother brought her up, as her father was frequently away.<ref name=place/> She became interested in journalism at the age of 12 after reading the comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1955, one year after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, 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.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>  

After moving to Atlanta, she attended Henry McNeal Turner High School where she became editor-in-chief of The Green Light, the school's newspaper, assistant yearbook editor, and "Miss Turner High".<ref name=":1"/>

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 integrate Georgia State College (later Georgia State University) in Atlanta. However, Hunter and Holmes were more interested in attending the University of Georgia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 

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.<ref name=":1" /> That fall, Hunter enrolled at Wayne University (later Wayne 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.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":1" /> This led to court case Holmes v. Danner, in which the registrar of the university, Walter Danner, was the defendant.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name=":0" />

Hunter graduated in 1963 with a B.A. in journalism.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

File:Charlayne Hunter-Gault, head and shoulders (cropped).jpg
Hunter-Gault in 1975

In 1967, Hunter joined the investigative news team at WRC-TV, Washington, D.C., and anchored the local evening news. In 1968, Hunter-Gault joined The New York Times as a metropolitan reporter specializing in coverage of the urban black community. She joined The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1978 as a correspondent, becoming The NewsHour's national correspondent in 1983. She left The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in June 1997. She worked in Johannesburg, South Africa, as National Public Radio's chief correspondent in Africa (1997–99). Hunter-Gault then joined CNN as its Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent in 1999. She exited this role in 2005,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> although she still regularly appeared on the network and others, as an Africa specialist.

During her association with The NewsHour, Hunter-Gault won additional awards: two Emmys and a Peabody for excellence in broadcast journalism for her work on Apartheid's People, a NewsHour series on South Africa.<ref>58th Annual Peabody Awards, May 1999.</ref> She also received the 1986 Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, a Candace Award for Journalism from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988,<ref name="page2">Template:Cite web</ref> the 1990 Sidney Hillman Award, the Good Housekeeping Broadcast Personality of the Year Award, the Women in Radio and Television Award and two awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for excellence in local programming. The University of Georgia Academic Building is named for her, along with Hamilton Holmes, as it is called the Holmes/Hunter Academic Building, as of 2001. She has been a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors since 2009<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and serves on the board of trustees at the Carter Center.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Hunter-Gault published In My Place in 1992 which was a memoir about her experiences at the University of Georgia.<ref name=place>Template:Cite book</ref>

Personal life

While in high school, at the age of 16, Hunter, along with two friends, converted to Catholicism after being raised as a follower of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.<ref name=":0" />

Shortly before she was graduated from the University of Georgia, Hunter married a classmate, Walter L. Stovall, the writer son of a chicken-feed manufacturer.<ref name=Jet /><ref name=Kennedy>Randall Kennedy, Interracial Intimacies (Random House, 2003), p. 100.</ref> The couple was first married in March 1963 and then remarried in Detroit, 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.<ref name="Time">Template:Cite magazine</ref> 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 under Georgia law.<ref name=Jet /><ref name=Kennedy /><ref>Art Sears Jr., "Lawyer Asks to Defend Hunter's Mixed Race Marriage in Georgia Court", Jet, September 19, 1963, pp. 26 and 27</ref> News reports quoted the parents of both bride and groom as being against the marriage for reasons of race.<ref name=Jet /> 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."<ref name="Time" /> The couple had one daughter, Suesan Stovall, a singer (born December 1963).<ref>Randall Kennedy, Interracial Intimacies (Random House, 2003), pp. 100 and 101.</ref>

Following her divorce from Walter Stovall, Hunter married Ronald T. Gault, a black businessman who was then a program officer for the Ford Foundation. Later, he became an investment banker and consultant. They have one son, Chuma Gault, an actor (born 1972).<ref name="people.com" /> The couple lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they also produced wine for a label called Passages.<ref name="people.com">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>"Whatever Happened to Charlayne Hunter?", Ebony, July 1972, p. 138</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After moving back to the United States, the couple maintain a home in Massachusetts, where they remain active supporters of the arts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Filmography

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

Publications

{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B=Template:AmboxTemplate:Main other }}

Citations

Template:Reflist

General and cited references

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Charlayne_Hunter-Gault&oldid=404045"