"Pearl Stewart"(1950)

A freelance journalist and journalism educator was the first African-American woman to lead a major daily newspaper when she was hired in 1992 to head the Oakland Tribune.In 2002 she founded the website Black College Wire (blackcollegewire.org),an online news service and training program for journalists in Historically Black Colleges and Universities(HCBUs).Pearl was five when her parents moved from Camden,Alabama to Rochester,New York.Her father, a school principal,first round work as a bus driver and later as a probation officer.Her mother, a teacher,first worked in a laundry before becoming a social worker.She was one of only five students in Rochester Nazareth Academy, a school of 1,200.Pearl edited the campus newspaper,The Hilltop,while earning a degree in Afro-American Studies with a minor in journalism.She graduated from Howard in 1971 and earned a master's degree in communication the following year at American University.Pearl first job was a United Press International in San Francisco as one of two blacks on staff.From 1976 to 1980 she was a reporter for the Oakland Tribune.Pearl received death threats after reporting on the internal violence of the Black Panther Party.From 1980 to 1991 she covered Oakland news as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle.In 1992 the Tribune's new owners chose her as editor because of her deep understanding of local issues.One year later Pearl left the Tribune,citing "differences in style" with a fellow editor.She then took a position as editor of the Chicago Defender.In 1995 Pearl was a fellow in the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press,Politics ans Public Policy at Harvard University,where she conducted research and wrote on the topics of race and sex-based discrimination in coporate America.From 2000 to 2005 she taught at Florida A&M University's School of Journalism and Graphic Communication .During that time she founded Black College Wire website with a $200,000.00 grant from the John S.and James L Knight Foundation.The website fosters communication among HBCU Journalism students by linking 22 HBCU student newspapers.BCW also has an internship component,pairing students with top industry journalists.From 2004 to 2009 Pearl was a writing coach/consultant for The Freedom Forum non-profit website.For two years (2008-2010) she was a writer-editor for The Black Collegian Magazine.She currently is an instructor at Xavier University of Louisiana and a correespondent for Diverse Issues in Higher Education.