“H” is for Hunter-Gault, Charlayne (b.1942)

“H” is for Hunter-Gault, Charlayne (b.1942). Journalist, civil rights activist. Born in Due West, South Carolina, Hunter-Gault attended  the University of Georgia and was the first African American woman to graduate from the school. It was the first of many firsts for one of the nation’s groundbreaking minority journalists. In 1968 she joined the reporting staff of the New York Times. She joined public television’s “The McNeil/Lehrer Report” in 1978 as a correspondent, winning many national awards for her reporting on the struggle for civil rights in South Africa. Later she worked for National Public Radio as the chief African correspondent and joined CNN in 1999 as the news network’s Johannesburg bureau chief. Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s 1992 book, In My Place, is a memoir of her growing up in the South and recounts her experiences at the University of Georgia.