BUILDING ON A LEGACY
Vernon Jarrett died May 22, 2004, after losing a battle with cancer. But his legacy lives on through the institute and the medal named in his honor. Jarrett began his career in 1940 at the Chicago Defender and later became the first African-American columnist at the Chicago Tribune before moving to the Chicago Sun-Times, where he remained until 1994. He was described by the Rev. Jesse Jackson “as a journalist in the tradition of Frederick Douglass who used his pen to affect public opinion and public policy,” and was called a race man who wasn’t afraid to talk “Black.”
It’s this vision that inspired Wickham to both name the medal in Jarrett’s honor and persevere in achieving his own goals with the institute.
“The vision for me is that the institute will be one-stop shopping for Black journalists,” Wickham says. “It will be in one setting what the Nieman is to Harvard, the Pulitzer is to Columbia and what the Peabody is to the University of Georgia. We’re going to encourage the nurturing of mid-career Black journalists, we’re going to recognize their excellence and we’ll tie into that the nurturing of future career journalists. We want to fill the void that the industry has been grappling with for years.”
Just as Jarrett would have wanted.
For more information on the journalism institute, visit <www.ifajs.org>.
Editor’s Note: Tracie Powell traveled to Canada and Mexico where she reported and wrote about African influences on these two countries for the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies.
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
