"Malvin Russell Goode"[February 13,1908-September 12,1995]

Was the first African-American to appear on the air regularly as network news correspondent.When the American Broadcast Company (ABC) hired the veteran Pittsburgh radio and newspaper reporter in 1962,it assigned him  the prestigious United Nations bureau post in New York City,where he remained for two decades.His drive and dedication made him an inspiration and mentor to younger colleagues in bradcast journalism both African American and white.He Though he covered civil rights marches and integration issues for ABC for many years,he did so because they were of importance to him,not simply because the network assigned its "black stories to African American reporters.Upon his death Malvin was praised for the integrity and professionalism he brought to his job,and the doors he gallantly held open for a younger generation of reporters.Malvin was born in White Plains,Virginia,in 1908,the grandson of former slaves.He grew up around Pittsburgh,and went to public schools in Homestead Pennsylvania.He began working in the steel mills while he was in high school and continued there though out high school his studies at the University of Pittsburgh,where he earned a bachelor of arts in 1931.Jobs were scarce during the Great Depression and even scarcer for African American college graduates so Malvin continued working in the mills another five years.In 1936 he became a probation officer with the juvenile court in Pittsburgh and director of boys works for a Pittsburgh Young Men's Christian Association center,which at the time ran extremely popular and influential community programs for urban children.He was instrumental in helping end some of the discriminatory practices of the Pittsburgh YMCA centers.Then,during the 1940s,he became part of the management staff at the Pittsburgh Housing Authorty,a post of he held for six years.Malvin entered journalism in 1948 at the age of 40,when he was hired at the Pittsburgh Courier,the city's African American newspaper  and at at the time the most successful of its kind in circulation in the country.In 1949 he began to do 15-minute news broadcasts for the radio station KQV.The following year he jumped ship to WHOD that did a daily five-minute news show.Eventually,Malvin and his sister,Mary Dee,had a news show on WHOD that was the only brother-sister team in the business.In 1952 he was made news director of the radio station,while maintaining his post at the Pittsburgh Courier.Through his work he became the first African American member of the National Association of Radio and Television News Directors.By this time he had also married Mary Lavelle and begun a family would produce six children.In 1962 Malvin was hired by ABC News as its first African American reporter and assigned the United Nations beat.His historic first came as a result of a comment made by baseball great Jackie Robinson-- the first African American to play in the major leagues and a friend of Malvin's--to ABC vice president James Hagerty on how the only people of color he saw at ABC headquarters appeared to be "a lady with a white uniform in the lobby dusting and a Negro doorman."ABC chose Malvin from among three dozens candidates,partly "because he was considered dark enough so blacks would know he was black,but light enough so that whites wouldn't feel threatened,"according to information attributed to Malvin in The African American Almanac.Only two months into his new job,Malvin distinguished himself with his coverage of the tense Cuban missle crisis,when many assumed the U.S. & Russia were about to declare war.He reported from the onerous debates between representatives of both countries at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan.Malvin also served as a reporter for ABC'S local affiliate in New York City,WABC,but he was still only one of a meager number of African Americans who appeared on the air.The riots of the 1960s in cities like Los Angeles,Newark,and Detriot pointed out the bias in broadcast journalism this era.Previously,media outlets had foused on providing news about a world that seemed exclusively white.the media realized they were portraying a limited view of the world to their audiences when these cities started to burn,and they had few African Americans  reporters they could send out to cover disturbances.Malvin was one of them.The 1968 National Advisory Commmission on Civil Disorders helped bring more African Americans to jobs at major  stations across the country,by then Malvin had already covered the assassinations of prominent African American leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.His long time colleague George Strait recalled about the seasoned journalist in the New York Times,"He wouldn't let them assign him only to so-called black stores...he opened the way for the next generation.Malvin also took his expertise overseas,joining a delegation of other African American colleagues in teaching journalism in Nigeria,Ethiopia,and Tanzania for two months in 1963.Malvin was the U.N. correspondent until the 1980s,when he became a consultant to the network.Malvin kept an office at the United Nations until he was 80.For many years he also served as special  correspondent on international affairs for the syndicated National Black Network,and was an in-demand public speaker.