Wendy Melillo

Associate Professor, Journalism, American University

When the National Association of Black Journalists admitted a group of young black journalists called “The Metro Seven” into its Hall of Fame in 2019 for fighting past discrimination at the Washington Post, America was at the precipice of a racial reckoning.1 A year later, the murder of the Black man George Floyd by a white police officer sparked national riots over police brutality toward African Americans, prompted actions to remove confederate statues and forced newsrooms to intensify efforts to create more diverse workforces.

The Metro Seven, named by newsroom colleagues for working on the paper’s Metropolitan Desk, filed their discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1972 – an action considered a first against a major national newspaper.2 Since then, efforts to diversify the Post’s newsroom are best described as a seesawing of employment gains and losses for Blacks. The Post’s creation of a new managing editor position for diversity and inclusion two months after Floyd’s death is considered a victory despite it taking 48 years since the seven’s complaint. The Post hired Krissah Thompson as the first Black woman to hold a ME position at the paper.3 But Thompson took over in a year when “one in three workers who left the newsroom were Black,” and “fewer than one in five of those hired that year were Black,” an April 2022 study by the paper’s guild found.4

Despite the NABJ’s important national recognition, the Metro Seven are little known outside the Capital Beltway. This essay is one former Washington Post reporter and current journalism professor’s attempt to make their story part of media history’s collective memory about diversity and inclusion.

Feeling Unwelcome

The isolation and slights that the some of the Seven said they experienced inside the Post’s 1972 newsroom during recent interviews with them occurred during the paper’s rise to prominence under the leadership of then Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and Publisher Katharine Graham. A year earlier, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers and the Post soon

followed. The Democratic National Committee break-in marking the start of Watergate happened three months after the seven reporters – LaBarbara (Bobbi) A. Bowman, Ivan C. Brandon, Leon Dash, Michael B. Hodge (now deceased), Penny Mickelbury, Richard Prince and Ronald A. Taylor – filed their EEOC complaint on March 23, 1972.

The number of Black reporters in the Post’s early 1970s newsroom had grown only slightly since the race riots in L.A.’s Watts district in the summer of 1965. At that time Bradlee wrote in his 1995 memoir that the Black staff writers included columnist Bill Raspberry, foreign correspondent Jesse Lewis (who described the Seven’s complaint to me as “dead on”), and

Dorothy Gilliam, the first black woman hired at the paper as a general assignment reporter in 1961 who later became an assistant city editor and columnist.5 “I was not sensitive to racism or sexism, to understate the matter,” Bradlee wrote. “The newsroom was racist. Overtly racist, in a few isolated cases; passively racist in many places where reporters and editors were insensitive and unsensitized.”6

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Leon Dash, an endowed chair and professor of journalism at the University of Illinois’s Center for Advanced Study, recalled the time in 1967 when he overheard then Post columnist Bill Gold encouraging newly arrived reporter Bob Levey to join the National Press Club. As he listened to the two white men chatting, Dash wondered why Gold hadn’t offered him the same advice during their friendly conversations. “That was a defining moment because that was the attitude of most of the white male staff,” Dash said. “The Black staff were to be tolerated but not encouraged.”7

Coming from her position as the first Black reporter at the Georgia Athens Banner- Herald paper, Penny Mickelbury said she lasted one year in the Post’s newsroom. “People mostly wouldn’t talk to you,” she said. The newsroom “was not a welcoming place for women, for Blacks and particularly for Black women,” she continued. “They didn’t know what to do with us. They didn’t have experience with us.”8 Washington, D.C. native Bobbi Bowman, inspired to become a journalist by the comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter, remembered an incident during the early days of Watergate when she covered Montgomery County, Maryland for the Post. A White House Plumber – the secret group set up during President Richard Nixon’s administration to learn who leaked classified information to the press like the Pentagon Papers – had an office in Maryland. Carl Bernstein called Bowman to check the place out. Bernstein and Bob Woodward were the two reporters credited with doing most of the original reporting on Watergate. “I’m doing their leg work for them,” Bowman recalled.9

The reporters started meeting regularly at Richard Prince’s home to share experiences and devise strategies for change. “We were all bonded together,” said Prince, now a columnist and CEO of Journal-isms, a website that covers diversity issues in the media.10

Taking Action

Negotiations started with a February 7, 1972 memo listing twenty questions the seven sent to Bradlee and then Managing Editor Howard Simons. Among the most significant included why there had never been more than one Black reporter assigned to the national staff; why there were no Black editors who assign stories and work directly with reporters (called originating editors) on the Financial, Foreign, National, Sports or Style desks; and why there was only one Black originating editor on the Metropolitan Desk covering a city that was 71 percent Black at the time – a statistic that led to the D.C. nickname “Chocolate City.” The memo asked why there was only wire service or stringer coverage of national Black affairs since reporter Robert C. Maynard left a year before. Examples included Jesse Jackson’s resignation from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and coverage of Shirley Chisholm’s Florida primary campaign as the first Black woman to seek the nomination for president of the United States.11

Bradlee’s February 14, 1972 response touted the paper’s record of having 21 Black editors, reporters and photographers out of a newsroom staff of 396 as more than any paper in the country. He said the Post was committed to hiring Black journalists but had difficulty finding qualified ones. “We have not been successful in matching our commitment to hire, assign and promote blacks with our commitment to hire, assign and promote the very best journalists we can find to fill the needs we have.”12

The paper’s top editor thought few Black reporters were qualified enough to work at the Post. Then Post Ombudsman Ben H. Bagdikian summed up that attitude in a column about the Metro Seven complaint. “The usual reason given for not hiring more black professionals is that there’s just not enough qualified ones around, that however much employers may regret it, the national history of black poverty, bad education and blocked occupational opportunity has not been sufficiently remedied to produce blacks who can compete in training and experience with their white counterparts.”

Prince later described this perspective as “not just discrimination of race but discrimination of thought” in a 2020 interview. He referred to a column a former Post staff writer wrote that discussed how the white male heterosexual mindset pervaded the newsroom and if people didn’t fit into that mindset, then they would have trouble being successful. “So that’s what we were up against,” Prince said.13

By pushing for greater diversity, the seven forced changes even before they filed their complaint. In a March 10, 1972 memo, Bradlee and Simons said they would designate an Equal Employment Opportunity Officer for the news department, establish a mentorship program, commit to hiring an additional Black reporter for the National Desk and add a Black editor to the Metropolitan Desk.14

Still, negotiations soon broke down. The reporters wanted an affirmative action plan where Blacks would be “represented in the range of 35 to 45 percent of all newsroom reporter and editor categories within a year,” according to the Seven’s March 1972 press release. The percentages were based on the number of African Americans in the Washington metropolitan area at the time. Bradlee dismissed the request saying, “The only quota appropriate for this newspaper is a quota on quality.”15

The Metro Seven’s Legacy

 The EEOC’s November 1972 ruling said the Post discriminated against Black employees in its hiring, job-assignment and promotion practices. A New York Times article about the decision said the commission noted that in one job category including reporters, editors and commercial employees, “67 percent of white employees earn at least $200 a week, while only 16 percent of blacks earn that much.”16

The EEOC said the reporters had grounds to file a discrimination lawsuit against the paper. “We took that as a victory,” Prince said, even though the group – represented pro bono by former EEOC chairman and lawyer Clifford L. Alexander Jr. – had no resources to do so.

Meanwhile, women inside the newsroom also pushed for greater equality. In the same year as the seven’s complaint, 117 women filed a sex discrimination lawsuit with the EEOC. The suit was settled in 1980 with 567 women receiving from $50 to $250 in back pay and the paper agreeing to a five-year affirmative action plan guaranteeing that one-third of the editorial and commercial jobs would be filled by women.17 Publisher Katharine Graham later acknowledged the obstacles people of color and women faced. “When the 1970s brought infusions of blacks and women, neither the Post nor Newsweek at first dealt with the new employees with much sensitivity, understanding, or skill, but this was true of almost every organization in mainstream America.”18

Looking back, Bob Levey, then president of the Post’s newspaper guild at the time of the seven’s complaint, said the reporters understood how to pressure the newspaper’s management. “It was a question of holding the Post’s feet to the fire,” Levey said. “You claim to have the highest standards and you hold others accountable for diversity. What about you?”19

In her memoir, Dorothy Gilliam credited the Metro Seven’s actions with helping her later “land an editing job” at the paper.20 Former Post columnist Courtland Milloy, who worked at the paper for 48 years before leaving last December, attributed the seven’s efforts to his getting hired there as a young black man in 1975. “Without them, I might not have gotten a job,” he said.21

1 NABJ, “Hall of Fame,” December 27, 2019. https://nabjonline.org/awards/hall-of-fame/#:~:text=Our%202019%20inductees%3A, Howard%20%E2%80%93%20Sports%20Journalist%2FEditor

2 “Racial Bias Charged at Washington Post,” The New York Times, March 24, 1972. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/24/archives/racial-bias-charged-at-washington-post.html

3 Paul Farhi, “Krissah Thompson Named the Washington Post’s First Managing Editor for Diversity and Inclusion,” July 28, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/krissah-thompson-named-the- washington-posts-first-managing-editor-for-diversity-and-inclusion/2020/07/28/2e033ffa- d0dc -11ea -8d32- 1ebf4e9d8e0d_story.html

4 The Washington Post Guild, “Pay Diversity and Retention at The Post,” April 13, 2022. https://postguild.org/2022-pay-study/

5 Jesse Lewis. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Washington, D.C. July 9, 2024.

6 Ben Bradlee, A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 280.

7 Leon Dash. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Washington, D.C., July 1, 2024.

8 Penny Mickelbury. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Washington, D.C. July 8, 2024.

9 LaBarbara (Bobbi) Bowman. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Washington, D.C. July 8, 2024.

10 Richard Prince. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Washington, D.C. July 3, 2024.

11 The Washington Post, Memo, February 7, 1972. https://www.journal-isms.com/the-washington-posts- metro-seven-cont/

12 The Washington Post, Memo, February 14, 1972. https://www.journal-isms.com/the-washington-posts- metro-seven-cont/

13 Society of Professional Journalists New England Chapter, “A Talk with Members of the Washington Post Metro 7,” July 29, 2020. https://www.journal-isms.com/with-the-society-of-profe ssional-journalists/

14 The Washington Post, Memo, March 10, 1972. https://www.journal-isms.com/the-washington-posts- metro-seven-cont/

15 Metro Seven, Press Release, March 23, 1972. https://www.journal-isms.com/the-washington-posts-metro- seven-cont/

16 “U.S. Agency Upholds Complaint by Blacks at Washington Post,” The New York Times, November 8, 1972. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/11/08/archives/us-agency-upholds-complaint-by -Blacks-at-washington- post.html

17 Washington Post Newspaper Guild, “A Study of Pay at The Washington Post,” 2019. https://postguild.org/2019-pay-study/#:~:text=In%201972%2C%20117%20fe male%20employees,The%20Post%20with%20the%20EEOC.

18 Katharine Graham, Personal History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 426.

19 Bob Levey. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Bethesda, Maryland. June 24, 2024.

20 Dorothy Butler Gilliam, Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More Like America (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2019), 159.

21 Courtland Milloy. Interview with Wendy Melillo. Personal interview. Washington, D.C. July 20, 2024.