Vernon Jarrett: An Appreciation

By: Mark Fitzgerald One of the last times I spoke with Vernon Jarrett, he was, characteristically, in the center of a controversy that mixed journalism, politics of a certain type, and race. And just as characteristically, the legendary columnist didn't see himself as the center of the story.

It was the fall of 2002, and the leadership of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), faced with rival factions that both claimed to be the elected heads of the Chicago chapter, had just recognized the slate of journalists headed by Jarrett as its legitimate affiliate.

Anyone else in his situation might have trumpeted plans to get more journalists of color in newsrooms or to more quickly promote those already inside newspapers or broadcast outlets. And as a founding member of NABJ and its national president from 1977 to 1979, Jarrett had more credentials to talk on those topics than nearly anyone else.

Instead, Jarrett returned again and again in the conversation to his plan to involve black Chicago reporters in the public schools, who would teach reading through the works of pioneering black journalists and writers such as Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois.

At the end of our talk, he made an impassioned plea for coverage of ACT-SO, the high school "intellectual Olympics" he founded for African American high school students back in 1977. Now, E&P tackles wide-ranging subjects, but Jarrett surely knew that there was no chance we would pursue a story about a student competition with no connection to newspapers at all except the involvement of a local journalism legend.

Just as surely, the astronomical odds of the story pitch's succeeding did not faze Jarrett. What seemed to stir Jarrett most was not the career ambitions of himself or his colleagues, but instead doing all he could to ensure the future of black children in whatever career they chose.

Yesterday's obituary in the Chicago Tribune for Jarrett, who died Sunday of cancer at age 82, ends appropriately with a quote from a speech he gave some years ago to students at Northwestern University: "You are going to have to see through your eyes, not through some editor's eyes," Jarrett told them, according to the obit by Ron Grossman. "What's wrong with having some integrity and taking a chance on getting fired?"

In a career that began with the black-oriented Chicago Defender in 1946, Jarrett repeatedly took chances. At his death, several Chicago commentators noted that his columns at different times could enrage both white and black readers. Jarrett spent 13 years at the Chicago Tribune, becoming the paper's first African-American syndicated columnist, before moving across the street to the Chicago Sun-Times in 1983, just as the tabloid became progressively more conservative under a series of new owners.

Jarrett became a lightening rod for controversy during the stormy tenure and sudden death in November 1987 of Chicago's first African-American mayor, Harold Washington. Jarrett had lobbied Washington to run and took his death hard. At a memorial service for the mayor, he lashed out at black politicians who were considering cooperating with a bloc of Washington opposers to select a new mayor.

"Black people can do just as much damage to each other as white people do to us," Jarrett told the crowd of 9,000, most of them black. "And if we don't do something about it, then they will destroy us before the white man gets a chance."

E&P wrote at the time that critics -- including fellow Sun-Times columnists -- charged that the speech was racially polarizing during a difficult time for the city. In a front-page Sun-Times editorial, Robert E. Page, then the president and publisher, disavowed any newspaper connection to the speech. The paper had a policy, Page wrote, against "the running of any particular column or article that might have the effect of fomenting civil disturbances or violence directed at any person or organization."

But if Jarrett was sometimes seen as a political radical, it was also true that he never bothered to be politically correct. At NABJ's 1993 convention, he argued vigorously -- amid occasional hooting and catcalls -- that any comparison of the bloody black civil rights movement and gay rights was odious, E&P reported Aug. 28, 1993.

"It does trivialize the experience of black people, which is unparalleled," he said. Homosexuals were never held as slaves, Jarrett said, nor declared three-fifths of a person by the U.S. Constitution, nor declared property by the U.S. Supreme Court, nor made subject to anything like the Fugitive Slave Act, nor denied the vote.

At the same convention, Jarrett criticized NABJ for picking as its luncheon speaker the author Terry McMillan, who had a best-seller at the time that some thought portrayed black men in a bad light. "I think it is tragic that the NABJ, on the [90th] anniversary of a great work, The Souls of Black Folks, chose to ignore W.E.B. DuBois and instead chose to honor a woman for this Waiting to Exhale," Jarrett said.

In recent years, Jarrett had come full circle, writing a column for the Chicago Defender. And to the end, he was politically active, even getting an absentee ballot delivered to his hospital bed for the Democratic primary election last March.

Jesse Jackson was at the hospital when Jarrett died Sunday. The columnist's funeral will be held Saturday at 1 p.m. at the headquarters of the Rainbow/PUSH organization founded by Jackson, located at 930 E. 50th St. in Chicago.

Inland Press Association Hits Record Membership

Membership of the Inland Press Association recently went over the 1,000 mark with the addition of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana, Executive Director Ray Carlsen notes in the current issue of The Inlander.

The Hagadone Corp. daily became the 870th newspaper member, which includes 578 dailies, 288 weeklies, and four university newspapers. Adding the 22 university members, 72 associate member businesses and 37 emeritus members gives the Des Plaines, Ill.,-based association a grand total membership of 1,001.

Carlsen attributed Inland's steady growth to word-of-mouth endorsements and newspaper exposure to its training programs and business research services.