Pioneering Journalist Evelyn Cunningham Dies at 94

By: Evelyn Cunningham, a pioneering journalist and aide to former New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, has died. She was 94.

Niece Gigi Freeman says Cunningham died Wednesday at the Jewish Home and Hospital in Manhattan.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Cunningham was a reporter and editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, an influential black newspaper. She covered lynchings in the segregated South as well as the emerging civil rights movement. She interviewed many prominent figures, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

In 1998, Cunningham accepted a George Polk Award on behalf of the Courier for its civil rights coverage.

Cunningham served as a special assistant to Rockefeller for community relations. In 1969, she was named director of the Women's Unit of the state of New York.