Timeline: 50 years of NABJ

By NABJ Monitor Staff

Newspaper design By Aneya Raynor

As NABJ marks its 50th year, its history has become part of the story of media in the U.S. Here are some highlights.

Information through 2002 comes from Wayne Dawkins’ histories of NABJ, “Black Journalists: The NABJ Story” and “Rugged Waters: Black Journalists Swim the Mainstream.

1975

• Dec. 3: A letter from the interim Committee for a national Association of Black Journalists invites an estimated 125 to 150 Black journalists to a founding meeting.
• Dec. 12: An estimated 80 Black newsmen and newswomen gather at the Sheraton Park in Washington D.C. to create a constitution, bylaws and mission statement for NABJ. After full membership excludes public relations and advertising professionals and radio disc jockeys, 44 founding members sign the founding documents and pay $10 dues apiece.

1976

• Oct. 2: First NABJ convention is held at Texas Southern University with about 85 attendees. President Gerald Ford and Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter are invited, but both send representatives. Carter later schedules a meeting with Black journalists on Oct. 2 in Chevy Chase, Maryland, considered a slight by NABJ.

1977

• July 31: Annual convention is held at the Lord Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore, where Acel Moore, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is given the first Ida B. Wells Award. Blacks represent 1% of daily newsroom journalists, 7.1% of broadcast professionals, including technicians, 4.1% of journalism school students.

1978

• Feb. 16: 12 of NABJ’s 15 officers are part of a 29-member group from national Black press groups to meet with President Jimmy Carter. “It was the first time that NABJ was a legitimate organization to a lot of large corporate media outlets. … Frankly, it was just a ceremony, but significant for legitimizing the organization in the eyes of white folks,” said Allison Davis, vice president of NABJ at the time. In August, the third annual conference is held in Chicago and Andrew Young, ambassador to the U.N. takes some hard questions as keynote speaker.

1979

• Sept. 23-26. Annual conference meets at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. after a planned convention in Kansas City in August was canceled. An estimated 270 people attend.

1980

• Sept. 28-Oct. 1: Annual conference meets at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C. About 200 people attend. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Ted Kennedy and Independent candidate John Anderson address the conference.

1981

• In August, about 250 people attend the annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky, and the event makes $20,000. NABJ establishes its first scholarship and the vice president-broadcast position is created. Immediate past president is officially added to the board.   

“ ’81 took us to another level. It was the first convention I remembered that wasn’t clubby. We didn’t know most of the people.” — Gayle Pollard

1982

• NABJ meets in Detroit with an estimated 325 people in attendance. Convention-goers learn that newsrooms employ 2,700 minorities, about half of them Black, or about 5.5% of the total. A total of $29,000 is raised to sponsor five internships for college students

1983

• In September, NABJ meets in New Orleans with 334 members attending. Thomas Morgan of the Washington Post defeats Mal Johnson for treasurer, leaving the board, for the first time, with no founders. President Merv Aubespin sets up NABJ’s first national office in donated space at the Louisville Courier-Journal. NABJ has 334 members at the time.

1984

• NABJ meets in Atlanta while news of Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young’s critical remarks of presidential nominee Walter Mondale’s inner circle makes national headlines. “The ‘84 convention was the pivotal convention. It interfaced white folks and their money with NABJ and its mission,” said Sam Fulwood III of the Charlotte Observer. NABJ board members meet Dr. Djibril Diallo, United Nations information officer for Africa, starting a long outreach to Africa and the Diaspora.

1985

• Albert Fitzpatrick of Knight Ridder, narrowly defeats DeWayne Wickham, owner of a TV production company, for president. The national headquarters move to a permanent home in Reston, Virginia. Membership is just under 1,000. 

1986

• The board hires Dennis Schatzman, controller for schools in Pittsburgh and former newsman, as the first full-time, paid executive director. At the annual conference in Dallas, a 29-year-old Spike Lee premieres “She’s Gotta Have It.” The boards of NABJ and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists meet and agree to hold a joint conference in 1992. NABJ membership is at about 1,400 members.

1987

• Executive Director Dennis Schatzman resigns, and Carl Morris, minority affairs director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, takes the role. DeWayne Wickham is elected NABJ president at the national conference in Miami where 1,400 members attend and a daylong cruise to the Bahamas is part of the event lineup. 

1988

• Online jobs bank launches with 150 members registering and 40 news organizations subscribing. The convention in St. Louis draws 1,300 people. NABJ, NAHJ, AAJA and NAJA hold a summit and discuss the possibility of a future joint conference.

1989

• Controversy erupts over the CIA having a booth at NABJ’s job fair during the annual convention in New York. NABJ’s revenue tops $1 million for the first time.

1990

• The Los Angeles convention, the first in the West, draws 1,720 people. The NABJ Student Multimedia Projects launch with the NABJ Monitor and a daily 15-minute broadcast. NABJ’s Hall of Fame is established with honors going to 7 Black journalists.

1991

• At the annual convention in Kansas City, the Visual Task Force raises $6,000 for scholarships with its first auction of photos. Some 1,259 members attend, most paying for themselves during a recession.

1992

• Four police officers’ innocent verdict in the Rodney King beating sparks riots prompts metro dailies across the country to re-evaluate their coverage of Black and Brown communities. Presidential candidate Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton addresses the NABJ convention in Detroit. Filmmaker Spike Lee shows a preview of his upcoming movie “Malcolm X” to an overflow crowd.

1993

• A star-studded convention in Houston featured Mae Jemison, the first Black female astronaut; best-selling author Terry McMillan; and Arsenio Hall, Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover and Alfie Woodard, previewing the movie “Bopha!” Some 1.950 members attend.

1994

• The first UNITY Conference hosts annual meetings of NABJ, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the Native American Journalists Association meets in Atlanta. 6,000 members of the four groups attend.

1995

• 20th NABJ convention comes to Philadelphia, drawing 2,453 members. The conference site is picketed by supporters of former Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists member Mumia Abu-Jamal, on death row for the murder of a police officer, who called for NABJ to support a new trial for Abu-Jamal.

1996

• The conference in Nashville draws newsmakers including Republican president and vice president candidates Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, Democrat Vice President Al Gore, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Olympic gold medalist Dominique Dawes, movie director John Singleton, NBA player Isaiah Thomas and author Michael Eric Dyson. Dole makes headlines saying the GOP would seek Black votes.

1997

• President Bill Clinton addresses the NABJ convention in Chicago, saying he thought there were ways to work around affirmative action rollbacks in education. 3,211 people attended the conference. On the opening day of the convention, Dennis Schatzman, NABJ’s first executive director, dies. He was 47.

1998

• NABJ pushes for chapters to obtain 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and bonding of officers who handle money after theft of $10,000 from the Indianapolis chapter and $1,800 from the New Orleans one. The annual convention returns to Washington, D.C., with 3,500 people in attendance. 

1999

• NABJ joins NAHJ, AAJA and NAJA for Unity 1999 in Seattle despite the passage in Washington state of an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative. 1,960 NABJ members attend, exceeding expectations. Overall, 6,800 people attend.
• Vice President Al Gore, frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Democratic candidate Sen. Bill Bradley and Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential candidate, address UNITY 99, talking about affirmative action. 

2000

• The conference goes to Phoenix, drawing 2,250 paid registrants. Membership continues to drop.

2001

• As NABJ runs a deficit, the conference meets in Orlando, Florida, Some 100 members sign a letter calling for a financial oversight committee.

2002

• Association finances stabilize, and conventions are scheduled closer to the East Coast core of membership. This year’s conference meets in Milwaukee.

2003

• The conference meets in Dallas. The first NABJ Emerging Journalist Award is given to Isaac Peterson III.

2004

• UNITY 2004 meets in Washington, D.C. 7,000 members of four journalism organizations of color preregister. Speakers include President George W. Bush, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

2005

• NABJ meets in Atlanta a month before Hurricane Katrina slams the Gulf Coast.

2006

• New Orleans mayor tells NABJ conference attendees in Indianapolis that his city will rebuild following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and he expects the city to recover to pre-hurricane status in five to seven years.

2007

• Presidential candidates for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, speak at the NABJ conference in Las Vegas. Obama talks about being asked if he’s “Black enough.”

2008

• NABJ holds the fourth UNITY conference in Chicago with NAHJ, AAJA and NAJA  amid concerns about how the revenues are split among the groups. The American Society of Newspaper Editors reports diversity was up slightly in the past year despite newspapers shrinking 4.4%. At 13.5%, it’s still well below the national number of 34%.

2009

• Thousands of journalists, including high schoolers in the Prime Movers Media Program, cover the inauguration of the first American Black president, Barack Obama. Come summer, 1,924 NABJ members register for the conference in Tampa, Florida, in the middle of a recession.

2010

• NABJ President Barbara Ciara submits a proposal to split revenue from the next UNITY conference, scheduled in 2012. At the conference in San Diego, NABJ offers its first Journalism Lab for high school students.

2011

• NABJ efforts to change revenue-sharing of the UNITY conference fail, and the NABJ board votes to withdraw from UNITY. NABJ meets in Philadelphia with the theme “The Power is Now: Claiming Your Destiny.”

2012

• The NABJ convention returns to New Orleans for the first time in 30 years. New Orleans became the host city after NABJ withdrew from the 2012 UNITY conference.

2013

• NABJ creates a constitutional commission to explore changes to the organization. At the annual convention in Kissimmee, Florida, NABJ clears more than $900,000.

2014

• NABJ’s annual meeting heads to Boston with the theme “Revolution to Evolution: Shaping Our Future.”

2015

• The 40th convention and career fair meets in Minneapolis for the first time.

2016

• NABJ holds a joint conference with NAHJ in Washington, D.C. with the theme #NABJNAHJ16: One Mission Driving Innovation while NABJ celebrates its 40th anniversary.

2017

• NABJ gathers in New Orleans, re-electing Sarah Glover as president. Glover becomes the first NABJ president to serve two terms and reports that NABJ’s finances move from a deficit to a projected surplus of over $1 million.

2018

• NABJ returns to Detroit, drawing nearly 3,000 people. President Sarah Glover notes that 58% of members are millennials and 17% Gen X, boding well for the organization’s future. Drew Berry is named executive director of NABJ.

2019

• The NABJ Student Multimedia Project celebrates 30 years at the annual convention in Detroit.

2020

• The COVID-19 pandemic shuts down public events, and NABJ’s convention moves online. The virtual conference ends up with a 30% surplus.

2021

• In a second virtual convention, Dorothy Tucker is re-elected NABJ president, the second to serve two terms in the top job.

2022

• NABJ and NAHJ gather in person in Las Vegas for a joint convention. More than 4,000 people attend.

2023

• NAHJ pulls out of a joint NABJ/NAHJ convention planned for 2024 in Chicago. NAHJ celebrates its 40th anniversary solo in Hollywood, its founding city.

2024

• NABJ makes national news when Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks to the convention, questioning the Black identity of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

2025

NABJ issues a documentary about its 50-year history, “Beyond the Headlines: The NABJ Story.” NABJ celebrates its 50th anniversary  in Cleveland. Executive Director Drew Berry retires.