Great news: James McGrath Morris's new biography on journalist Ethel Payne, Eye on the Struggle, is now available in the Schomburg Gift Shop! The book follows the life of one of the most significant figures of the civil rights era. Known as the “First Lady of the Black Press,” Payne was appointed the Washington Correspondent for the Chicago Defender in 1953, and became a key presence in  presidential news conferences, famously pressing then president Dwight D. Eisenhower on the issue of segregation. She also covered other historical moments like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the war on crime. 

Schomburg Director Khalil Gibran Muhammad reviewed Eye on the Struggle on the New York Times website. Below is an excerpt from his review:

Unsurprisingly, Payne established herself in a sea of white male reporters as a vocal and deft interlocutor of presidential news conferences. Ike liked her at first; she seemed safe and unassuming. She was, as Morris puts it, “the White House’s favorite Negro reporter.” That didn’t last long. Over and over again, she put Eisenhower on the spot. “You said then that you would have an answer later for this,” she once told him in regard to housing policies. “May I cite to you the situation at Levit­town in Pennsylvania as an example where members of minority groups are being barred?”

Learn more about Payne's influential life and career by purchasing a copy of Eye on the Struggle, now on sale at the Schomburg Gift Shop.