Robin D. Stone: Her Husband's Legacy
March is Women's History Month. It's a month set aside to honor not just historical women, but women in our everyday lives. This month I'd like to honor our client Robin D. Stone. Robin is a noted journalist, author, and devoted mother. When Robin's beloved husband, Gerald M. Boyd died in 2006, she made a commitment to keep moving towards her dreams and to bring Gerald's fascinating memoir to life - My Times in Black and White: Race and Power at the New York Times. We'll let her tell you in her own words...
Someone called my late husband's just-published book, My Times in Black and White: Race and Power at the New York Times (Lawrence Hill), a tragedy. After all, the protagonist, Gerald M. Boyd, dies after a protracted and public battle over the direction of his newspaper. But I call his story a success story. Gerald was a young man on a mission: to be a newspaperman and to be good enough to work at the New York Times. He succeeded, and along the way inspired a generation of journalists with his unwavering commitment to newsroom ethics, leadership and diversity.
He could have been a statistic, another poor, Black, orphaned boy lost to poverty and oppression in his hometown of St. Louis. But he had hope, tenacity, mad skills and a sense of grace and decency that carried him through rough times.
They led him to a string of firsts, including first Black White House correspondent and first Black managing editor for the Times. Race, sadly, madly, was surely a factor in the dissension that led to his dismissal from the Times, in the wake of a plagiarism scandal involving a young Black reporter in 2003.
When Gerald died in November 2006 at the age of 56, he was completing a draft of his memoir. I don't know how I managed to shepherd his book into print-many of those days are lost in a blur of grief. But one thing that kept me inching forward was knowing that I was helping him tell his extraordinary story of success.
Robin D. Stone is an independent journalist in New York. For more info:MyTimesInBlackandWhite
