"Committed to the Cause:
A Salute to NABJ's Presidents"

Vernon Jarrett
NABJ President
1977-1979

By Lynn Norment

There are many adjectives that describe Vernon Jarrett - courageous, pugnacious, aggravating, knowledgeable, loving, affectionate. But the one word that perhaps sums him up best is committed.

1918-2004

Long before he became NABJ's second president, he was among a handful of black journalists who, as he put it, "agitated" for their own national organization. And he was among the 44 who in December 1975 put one on paper at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Years ago Jarrett "retired" from his several long-time media positions, yet he is far from leading a life of leisure. He recently became a columnist with the New York Times' New American News Syndicate. And he is a senior fellow at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Throughout his illustrious career, he often wrote about and spoke out on controversial issues. That character trait led him to the helm of NABJ, where he was a vocal leader who never backed away from a fight or a debate. At the founding meeting, he was among the group that felt strongly that NABJ should be an organization of working journalists, not of disc jockeys, public relations professionals and journalism professors.

He was among the 50 or so journalists who attended NABJ's first convention in Houston in 1976 and he was among the 300 or so who the next year convened in Baltimore.

Although a natural leader, he did not seek the presidency of NABJ.

He was drafted.

"Several people came to me and asked me to run," he said in an interview at his home on Chicago's South Side.

Adds Paul Brock, who has known Jarrett for many years and was instrumental in NABJ's founding: "Vernon was already well respected and had national credibility. That's what the organization needed at the time."

Possessing maturity, wisdom and that respect, Jarrett found his new post one of the most taxing of his career. His first job as president was to heal the wounds left by vicious infighting over whether the newly forged NABJ constitution should be suspended to allow founding president Chuck Stone to serve a third term.

Jarrett, who was known for being fair, pulled the organization through that crisis and proved to be a committed leader. As noted in Wayne Dawkins' book, "Black Journalists: The NABJ Story," Jarrett "sacrificed a lot of time and personal funds in order to travel around the country, promote NABJ and encourage people to join."

And that was no easy task.

During that time, some black journalists were afraid or reluctant to join NABJ, which was being assailed by a few high-profile white media executives.

But that did not deter Jarrett, who has not known how to back down since being assigned to cover a race riot on his first day on the job at the Chicago Defender in 1946. The Paris, Tenn., native and graduate of Knoxville College was delighted to have his byline appear in the same publication as Langston Hughes and W.E.B. DuBois, the latter of whom he had the opportunity to spend time. Jarrett later studied at the University of Chicago and was a visiting professor of history at Northwestern University.

During the early days of NABJ, he was a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune; he also hosted a show on WLS-TV (ABC) and a radio program on a station owned by Johnson Publishing Co. His employers supported his work with NABJ and with the Chicago Association of Black Journalists, which he helped to officially found in 1976, though he had been hosting meetings even before NABJ's founding.

As president, he fought to establish NABJ's legitimacy.

As an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), Jarrett attended a September 1977 media conference hosted by the Ford Foundation and the Gannett Urban Journalism Center at the United Nations. The 130 participants from several media organizations included about 20 NABJ members. It was one of the first meetings at which NABJ worked with white journalism groups to get blacks into mainstream journalism. At the time, blacks composed about 2 percent of newsroom employees.

Another milestone of Jarrett's administration was NABJ's first meeting with a U.S. president. In February 1978, 12 NABJ board members were among 29 black press representatives invited to the White House to meet with President Jimmy Carter and his cabinet. The meeting legitimized the organization to mainstream media executives.

NABJ's third national conference was held in Chicago in August of that year. Attendance grew to 500 and more than 300 NABJ members toured Johnson Publishing (home of EBONY and Jet magazines).

Jarrett recalls that publisher John H. Johnson told the group: "I never thought I would live to see this many Black journalists in one room," though he noted that "we still have a long way to go."

Convention speakers included Andrew Young, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who recently had created an uproar when it was revealed that he had been meeting secretly with Palestinian leaders in an effort to bring about peace in the Middle East.

Jarrett later wrote in his Chicago Tribune column: "Most of the (NABJ) standing-room-only audience were highly sympathetic and held a very high regard for Ambassador Young. He received a long and loud standing ovation before he spoke, and despite what several people considered his lengthy defense of the Carter administration, he was cheered as he left he ballroom."

The Chicago convention was considered a success for NABJ and a triumph for Jarrett. It was at this gathering that the first Frederick Douglass Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Mal Goode of ABC News.

During his second year, NABJ met in Washington, D.C. Again, Jarrett, with the help of his board, lined up a stellar array of heavy-hitting speakers, including baseball great Lou Brock, who at the time was embroiled in a dispute with organized baseball; Randall Robinson, who recently had launched TransAfrica, and U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.).

Jarrett chuckles when he tells how he mistakenly introduced the senator as "the president of the United States," the office for which he was a candidate at the time. "Everyone cracked up," he recalled. "I had to come back up on the stage and correct myself."

At that convention, the first journalist of the year award went to Acel Moore of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Les Payne of Newsday.

Unlike some NABJ luminaries, Jarrett did not drop out of sight after his term ended. He proudly acknowledges that he has attended every NABJ convention, and he continues to be a strong advocate for black journalists to document current events and become scholars who can inform and enlarge our people. (Due to his background and vast knowledge of history, Jarrett's rhetoric often was peppered with historical figures and dates. In the early years he was deemed NABJ's unofficial historian.)

Over the years, Jarrett has demonstrated an unwavering passion for encouraging and providing opportunities for black youth. One of his greatest contributions was the founding of the NAACP's ACT-SO (Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics), which had 1,500 participants at the NAACP 2000 convention.

Jarrett gets generous heapings of respect, admiration and affection wherever he goes, be that an NABJ conference, an NAACP meeting or any other gathering of socially conscience movers and shakers.

When asked to compare the NABJ of his term and today, he said there is none.

"The numerical strength and budget today are simply outstanding. Back then I paid for my own travel. When I was covering stories, I was also working for NABJ. I felt guilty about asking my employer to cover my expenses, and I rarely turned in expense reports to NABJ. Now we (NABJ) have gotten so big, we have difficulty debating issues, taking a stand on issues. But NABJ is a great organization. I'm proud to be a part of it."

Lynn Norment is managing editor of Ebony and a former NABJ regional director. A past president of the Chicago Association of Black Journalists, she chaired NABJ's 1997 convention in Chicago.

Contents | Top

T A B L E OF C O N T E N T S

MERV AUBESPIN

ARTHUR FENNELL

AL FITZPATRICK

DOROTHY GILLIAM

VERNON JARRETT

THOMAS MORGAN III

BOB REID

CHUCK STONE

SIDMEL ESTES-SUMPTER

WILLIAM W. SUTTON, JR.

DEWAYNE WICKHAM

VANESSA WILLIAMS

WILLIAM W. SUTTON JR.

E D I T O R S

JACK E. WHITE
LYNN NORMENT

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M A N A G I N G  E D I T O R

HERBERT LOWE

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A S S I S T A N T
M A N A G I N G  E D I T O R

KATRINA N. BROWN

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P H O T O  E D I T O R S

FRED SWEETS
HILLERY S. GARRISON

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C O P Y  E D I T O R

MIRA LOWE

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R E S E A R C H E R

WAYNE DAWKINS

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D E S I G N E R

NICOLE SHERMAN
PRINT SOURCE

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E X E C U T I V E  D I R E C T O R

ANTOINETTE SAMUEL

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SPECIAL THANKS
to
KNIGHT RIDDER
for its sponsorship
and to
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
for its support
of this publication.