The trailblazer was hired as a Washington reporter for the Chicago Defender, a prominent Black newspaper, in 1951. Payne, who later became the first Black female commentator at CBS News, is also remembered for confronting President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954. The journalist asked the president he would support a ban on segregation in interstate travel.

“I’d like to know if we could assume that we have administration support in getting action on this?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t know what right you say that you have to have administration support. The administration is trying to do what it believes to be decent and just in this country,” Eisenhower responded.

Dunnigan and Payne paved the way for many more Black journalists that came after them.

“She knocked the door down,” Alicia Dunnigan said about her grandmother. “I marvel at all that she did, all that she was, and all that she fought for.”

Alice Dunnigan

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