On a cold, busy weekend in Washington, D.C., 44 Black journalists and media professionals filed into a room. They discussed creating an association to strengthen, protect and provide opportunities for those in the profession. It was December 12, 1975, and the meeting was a culmination of multiple phone calls with journalists nationwide.
Those 44 professionals signed their names on a legal pad, inaugurating what would become the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). Sandra Long Weaver was one of those people who declared she was a founding association member. Now, as they gear up to celebrate 50 years, she reminisced on her accomplished career in journalism and the strides made for Black journalists.
Recently, NABJ was in the news as Presidential candidates Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump sat down with the association for an interview. When NABJ announced the interviews with the former president at their annual convention in Chicago, they faced some backlash. However, Weaver said it was normal for NABJ to invite presidential candidates for interviews. Dating back to 1976, NABJ invited the presidential candidates to speak.
Despite the response, Weaver recalls media professionals filling the room to hear what the former president had to say. The interview circulated on various news outlets, such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Between Trump’s treatment of ABC journalist Rachel Scott and his questioning of Harris’ ethnicity, NABJ was highlighted for its record of showcasing fair and factual reporting.
“I’m glad that we were able to interview both presidential candidates,” Weaver said. “I still have people who disagree with me who still feel like we never should have had Trump. But we’re journalists and we feel like we still have to present both sides.”
Though Harris had to decline the in-person invitation to the interview, she was interviewed virtually in September.
Writing Her Story
Weaver, a Bloomfield resident, knew she always wanted to write and tell stories. Originally from Annapolis, MD, Weaver was involved in her high school and college newspaper and later her college newspaper at the University of Maryland.
“From the very beginning, I knew that I wanted to be a journalist,” Weaver said. Her love for delivering the news was always strong. However, Weaver remembers a pivotal moment that shaped how she approached the profession.
It was the spring of 1970, and Alex Haley, writer of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” came to speak at a local community college. Weaver remembers skipping class with her friend and sitting on the floor of the packed auditorium. She was eager to hear Haley speak about interviewing Malcolm X, but Haley had other plans. He started talking about what the world would later know as “Roots.”
“He said, ‘I’m working on this new project, and I’m researching my family’s history, and I’ve crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve been in the ship’s bowels,’ and I started taking notes,” Weaver said. Weaver, hearing Haley talk about the premise of “Roots,” ushered in two monumental moments in her new career.
The first immediate result was Weaver’s story about the event that made the front page of the high school newspaper. “My mother saved it for years and hung it up on the refrigerator until it fell apart,” she said.
The other lasting effect Weaver experienced was realizing she wanted to break the mold in journalism. “I’ve always cared about having more stories about black people and having more black voices,” Weaver said.
Weaving in Fresh Voices
This ideology fueled and followed Weaver throughout her career. In newsrooms where she was one of two Black reporters, Weaver made sure to seek out stories from those in underrepresented communities. This practice continued once Weaver became the first Black woman to be a managing editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“When I was an assigning editor and editing stories that would always interview the same people, I would say ‘let’s get more diverse voices, reach out to more people’ and I could do that because I now had a little more control,” Weaver said.
Moving forward, Weaver wanted everyone to know the value of uplifting stories in the Black community. In 2014, she started “Tea and Conversations,” an event with her reporters and their sources. Weaver would invite these sources to the newsroom, where they would divulge issues they felt were important to them in the community. By the fifth and final year of “Tea and Conversations,” nearly 500 people attended the event.
When she’s not working to advance the journalism field, Weaver is busy with her other favorite role – being a grandmother. She is “very proud” of her son, Sean Long, who serves on the Montclair Board of Education.
What’s Next
Though Weaver no longer works in the newsroom, she is still busy ushering in the next generation of journalists. She is an advisor for a student newspaper at Tennessee State University. She is also working with the Dow Jones News Fund to teach new journalists in their internship program.
As NABJ celebrates 50 years, Weaver is excited to plan next year’s conference in Cleveland, Ohio. “Being at a NABJ conference has always been a point of rejuvenation for me. You go there, and you’re energized again in a different way, and it’s a family reunion,” she said.
“I get excited seeing all the young people and seeing how excited they are about coming in and being able to tell stories in all of the different ways that they can,” she continued.
This year, Weaver hopes to spread the word about NABJ throughout Montclair so she can see even more familiar faces at the event. The NABJ will hold its annual conference in August and meet in Washington, D.C., in December to honor its official anniversary.
Weaver acknowledges that journalism has changed tremendously throughout the years. However, she still stands by two pieces of advice regarding young journalists.
“Bring people along with you as you’re ascending in your career,” she said. “And we need to have stories about Black people and what they’re doing, what our lives are like, not just from that lens of what they should be according to other people.”
For more information about the National Association of Black Journalists, visit their website here.
I’ve know of the NABJ–and known many members–since the early 1980s. But it never occurred to me to wonder about its origin story. Thank you. Ms. Adderley, for putting a face on it with this fascinating profile of Ms. Weaver.