COMING FULL CIRCLE

A pioneering newspaper editor illuminates the importance of racial diversity in newsrooms and the difficulties of achieving that diversity, especially for black women.

In a memoir that runs from her birth in 1949 to 2019, Lloyd (co-editor: The Edge of Change: Women in the Twenty-First-Century Press, 2009) offers hundreds of anecdotes and scenarios about how she managed to ascend to the top spots at major newspapers in an industry dominated by white males. The author had one advantage that many black women of her generation lacked due to pervasive racial segregation and gender inequities: She was born into a well-educated, economically comfortable family. Her upbringing—mostly in Savannah, Georgia—qualifies as unconventional (no spoilers here), but she never lacked for support from her close-knit relatives. After excelling in a severely segregated public school system, Lloyd entered Spelman College in Atlanta, an elite liberal arts institution for black women. There, she expanded her horizons by mingling with classmates who, unlike her, had attended schools with nonblack students and teachers. As the author notes, she had never crossed paths with whites in her daily life. After graduating from Spelman, Lloyd knew she wanted to become a journalist, but such a career seemed highly unlikely for a black woman. Though newspapers often publicly advocated for integration throughout society, their editors and publishers rarely practiced what they preached. Impressively, Lloyd managed to break through. With a combination of her unquestionable talent and fortuitous timing, she broke a series of glass ceilings until she became executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser. Along the way, she had also achieved influential editing positions at the Washington Post, Miami Herald, and USA Today, the flagship of the Gannett chain, a company that was ahead of its competitors in its practice of promoting women. Though Lloyd is not always self-effacing about her accomplishments, it’s not bragging if you have done it—and she has done a lot.

Inspiring reading for aspiring journalists and students of civil rights.