Here's an interesting story about a pioneering black journalist working in the heart of segregationist response to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Norman Lumpkin, who died on Tuesday, May 6, joined Montgomery, Alabama's WSFA-TV in 1969, the first African-American to appear on a mainstream local program on that station ever (and likely in that entire TV market). He thrived despite almost-certain negative reaction from white viewers initially, and he specialized in covering the most publicly visible figure of the segregationist/states' right cause, Governor George C. Wallace--a very gutsy task given the animosities of that day and time. Lumpkin would stay at WSFA for nearly a quarter century before eventually landing a position with an Alabama state agency.
From the website of the station he worked for: http://www.wsfa.com/story/25442778/well-known-former-wsfa-reporter-norman-lumpkin-has-died. His age was unknown at the time of the report.
From the website of the station he worked for: http://www.wsfa.com/story/25442778/well-known-former-wsfa-reporter-norman-lumpkin-has-died. His age was unknown at the time of the report.