The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Dorothy Butler Gilliam - "Trailblazer"

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Revisit Trevor's 2019 conversation with journalist Dorothy Butler Gilliam about her book "Trailblazer," which recounts her experiences as The Washington Post's first Black woman reporter. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. Thank you so much for being here. This is one of those stories that genuinely hit me so hard because it feels like you have lived through some of the most seminal moments in American history and you were also reporting on it. You worked for 50 years in this business. What do you think was the biggest change that you saw in your time in journalism as the first African-American woman working at the Washington Post? I think the biggest change was after the urban uprisings of the 60s, when the Kerner Commission,

which was a commission that was named by the president, said the media had in many ways contributed to the fact that the that the urban riots occurred and that was because they had not integrated their reporting and the editing staffs. And in many ways they said they were just showing us America only through white eyes. So I started at the post in 1961, when I went back in 1972. It was a little different

because there were more reporters of color, more females, but still it was very white male dominated. You came into this world at a time when it was just something that did not happen. You walked into a newsroom where there were only two other reporters who were black. You were the first African American woman in this space. And reading in the book, there's one of the, I mean, just the most harrowing passages where they had a policy of not reporting when black people were murdered. One editor even called those cheap deaths that shouldn't be reported.

How do you even begin to work in that kind of environment? And did you help the editors understand why it was crucial to report all news? I tried to help them. And I think the way I began working in that environment is because Dr. Martin Luther King was beginning to say to young black people, go into white corporations and excel. So it felt like I was almost part of the freedom movement by going and becoming the first African-American woman at the Washington Post. I didn't think I was a trailblazer at that point.

I just was doing a job that I loved. I had had four years in the black press. And the black press has been very important in America, both in terms of reporting on civil rights, but in going places where white reporters wouldn't go, where white newspapers wouldn't go. So that experience also helped to prepare me for my work at the Washington Post. One of the first stories that I remember a lot was when I went to the University of Mississippi

as part of the team from the Post to cover the integration of Ole Miss. And that was the most horrendous thing you can imagine because Mississippi was one of those places where it was a lynching state. It was the heart of segregation and the university was like this bastion of white supremacy so it was chaotic on the campus. But what hurt in addition was that I had no place that I could get a room because they didn't have hotels for black people. So I slept in a black funeral home.

And a funeral home? Yeah. I slept with the dead, Trevor. This is so insane that you have lived through that time. I'm honestly fascinated to know, in that time, when this was happening, were you optimistic? Did you think that you would see America change? Or was the resistance to integration so strong that you thought it would last

forever? The integration was so strong that I never thought I would see a black president. Wow. That was a huge step forward in many ways. But of course with America, it can help be liberal and then it can swing to conservatism and you see what we have now. I see what we have now. I do indeed.

You reported on so many stories and your inclusion in the newsroom was powerful because it really felt like when you read the book you live through two of really the most important eras in American history, in modern history definitely and that was women's movement for equal rights and black people's movement for equal rights and black people's movements for civil rights. Which of the two did you feel like had more momentum when you were in them? Did you feel like this is going to happen,

or this one won't? Or did it feel like both were just moving forward? It felt that the freedom riders, and the freedom movement, I called like it was going to open doors for so many other people the the to to to to to the to to to to to the their to to to their to their to the whole civil rights movement, the freedom movement. Yes. It felt like it was going to open doors for so many other people. Right. Because after the civil rights movement, after the black power era, that's when Gloria Sionin wrote her article that said, after black power, women power. And so after the women power, it's the blacks who were the pioneering minority.

And so after women power, then you had the oppression against gay people being really looked at and studied and acknowledged. Then you had the oppression against the disabled. So it's many ways, it's the black movement, I think that was the most important movement, because all people all over the world were singing, We Shall Overcome. You know, in China, and all around the world, people who had been oppressed were saying,

if that happened in America, you know, why can't it happen here? It's so powerful when you speak about how, when you first got to the post, your mission was not to be a reporter that focused on black issues, but just a reporter who excelled. You didn't want to be pigeonholed as a black reporter. But then you came to realize that it was crucial for you to take up that mantle and report on black issues. Why do you think it's so important for mainstream media to

look more like actual America and not just have the voice of predominantly white men? Yeah, it's because you can't really talk about a community that you don't in some way represent, that you don't in some way know, that you don't in some way have more than a stereotyped notion of what it's all about. And because with white supremacy in America, that whole narrative has also been accompanied by an anti-black narrative. Right. And very often, that's been since the beginning. This is 2019, we, African-Americans or black people have been since the beginning. This is 2019. We, African Americans or black people, have been in America 400 years.

We were here a year before the Mayflower. But, you know, two and a half centuries of that was the era of slavery. Right. And then at the era of Jim Crow. So, or segregation in the South. Yeah. So the whole feeling that this is, this is, this is, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, and that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's, that's, that's, that's that's th Crow. Or segregation in the South. Yeah. So the whole feeling that this whole anti-black narrative that has been a part of the DNA

almost of America as much as white supremacy. That has not really been acknowledged. It's been kind of glossed over and you pay attention to have, you know, the violence, that the, the, the, the, the the era, the era of that's, and that that the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the their their the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the over and you pay attention to, you know, the violence that violence gets. Yes. But in terms of what motivated, and a lot of it is about poverty, you know, poverty is very violent. And as you were saying in the segment with the billionaires, you know, it's very real what's happening in this country. And it's been happening for a while.

50 years of writing, 50 years of finding ways to report stories even in spaces where you weren't allowed. I mean, one of the most shocking and I find funny at the same time stories is when you talked about how when yourself and colleagues would go to marches, you would have to disguise yourselves because you couldn't be journalists in public as black people. You would dress up as clergy, you dress up as priests and so forth and nuns and you would hide typewriters under your clothing, which I didn't even know how they fit. But when you look at America today, how do you find that balance for yourself

of both where America has come from and where America still needs to go? Okay, first I should say that those reporters who wrapped their old royal typewriters in old clothes when they went into the south because they didn't want the white sheriffs to arrest them. And so they would also disguise themselves as ministers and they carried Bibles under their arms and so that was a way of trying to get to the story and knowing that they couldn't go as reporters.

But where I see things today, I think it'sthe time when media is more important than ever. It was very difficult when the president started talking about fake news. It was very difficult because, you know, those of us who came up in the legacy media, we knew about all of the issues of ethics that we had to adhere to in order to be hired by the Washington Post and in order to work there. We knew that we didn't take gifts from anybody. We knew that we had to always pay our own way. We knew that we had studied in colleges and universities.

And so to have the, our whole process dismissed this fake news was not only detrimental to the US, but it was detrimental internationally. Because whatever we say about the faults of America, it still has been the bastion of democracy. And so when you have something as, as, as freedom of the, you know, as freedom of the, you know, as, the freedom of the news, you know, as, you know, as, as a, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, as, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, the, the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the, the the, the the the the, the the, the the the the the the the, th, theeeea, tha, thauuu, thauu, thau, thaui, the, the, the, the, the, the the the the the the the the faults of America. It still has been the bastion of democracy. And so when you have something as crucial, you know, as freedom of the press, being denigrated by the top official of the land, it has a very destabilizing effect in the whole world. I could genuinely talk to you for hours, but luckily I have the book to keep me company. Thank you so much for being on the show.

It's an honor media. Thank you so much. Trailblazer is available now. A truly fascinating story. Dorothy Butler Gilliam, everybody. The Daily Show with Cove the Comedy Central app. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more.

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