The newsroom in Charlotte, where I started my newspaper career in 1960, had a couple of white women news reporters and copy editors but no women line editors outside of the “Woman’s Page,” the section devoted to food, clothes, and lightweight features.
There were no back editors or reporters anywhere on the news staff and I don’t recall any other other minorities employed in the newsroom. It was a white man’s world.
When a black person was named in a news story he or she was identified as “a Negro.”
There were unwritten rules, too.
Willie Mays, “The Say Hey Kid,” was in the last half of a fabulous baseball career when I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and went to work full time for The Charlotte News in June 1966. He had led both major leagues in home runs in 1964 [47 ] and 1965 [52] and won the National League’s MVP trophy in ’65.
But a Charlotte News sports writer told me the sports department had been told not publish Mays’ picture more than twice a week no matter how many home runs he hit.
Mays, as anyone who follows baseball knows, was black.
NOTE1: I checked. Mays’ photo was published in The Charlotte News 17 times during the 24-week 1965 season, from opening day on April 12 to the last day of the season on Oct. 3. But never more than twice in one week.
NOTE2: When I retired in 2008 a black man was publisher of my newspaper, The News & Observer.
Coming Friday: Just In Time
