Contributions of many great African American achievements can be seen through different careers around the world.
The first African American female reporter for the New York Times was Nancy Hicks Maynard. Born as Nancy Alene Hall on November 1, 1946, in Harlem, New York, she attended Long Island University and graduated with a journalism degree in 1966.
Maynard began her journalism career as a copy girl and reporter with the New York Post. She was hired for The New York Times in September 1968.
Maynard and her husband founded the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland, California. The Oakland Tribune became the first major metropolitan daily newspaper to be owned by African Americans.
The Tribune won a 1989 Pulitzer Prize for photographs of the San Francisco Bay area earthquake. As the first president of the Maynard Institute, she helped establish the organization as the nation’s prime agent of change for newsroom diversity. Maynard’s advocacy persuaded the American Society of Newspaper Editors to pass the Year 2000 Goal, which called for the full integration of journalists of color on U.S. newspaper staffs.
In 1998, the National Association of Black Journalists presented her with its annual Lifetime Achievement Award.
On September 21, 2008 Maynard died of multiple organ failure at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Maynard’s legacy will continue to live on through future journalists and reporters
