[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 161 (Friday, October 3, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2223-E2224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       IN MEMORIAM OF A TRAILBLAZING AFRICAN AMERICAN JOURNALIST

                                  _____
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 3, 2008

  Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the lifelong 
accomplishments of the late Nancy Hicks Maynard, a pioneering advocate 
for greater diversity in the newsrooms of this country's newspapers. 
She was a native daughter of Harlem, where her mother nurtured her love 
for journalism, where she first

[[Page E2224]]

noted the incredible power of the press and decided its black-and-white 
pages desperately needed more color. Both as a strategist working to 
draw minorities to newsrooms, and as a groundbreaking journalist in her 
own right, she paved the way for women and African Americans in an 
industry home to few of either group. She rose from New York Post copy 
girl to reporter by age 20 and soon thereafter became a member of the 
New York Times' metropolitan staff--the youngest and first African 
American woman to do so. There, she covered New York and Washington 
science, health, education, and domestic policy issues until 1977. At 
Long Island University, she earned her bachelor's degree and studied 
journalism, and later, she earned a law degree from Stanford 
University.
  But her love affair with journalism did not end at the written word. 
In 1983, she and her husband, Robert C. Maynard, purchased the 
declining Oakland Tribune, which then became the only major daily with 
African American owners. She and he founded the Maynard Institute for 
Journalism Education, where they ran a summer program aimed at training 
minority reporters. Cultivating a broader cultural perspective for 
American media became the cause of her life. She served as a role model 
to aspiring journalists of all colors and genders, an exemplar of what 
dedication to a cause and a strong work ethic can accomplish.
  That tenacity and sense of purpose will be missed, but because of her 
work, her dream of a diversified newsroom has, and will continue, to 
concretize.

                          ____________________