INT: How did you come to work for the Courier?
LC: Well, I've had a love affair with the press ever since I was about 12 years old, and, ah, I submitted articles to the, ah, Afro-American in Philadelphia, the Tribune in Philadelphia, and The Pittsburgh Courier over the years that I was in high school. And, ahm, there was a need for a reporter in Los Angeles and so I wrote, ah, to the then, a publisher, Mrs. Jessie Vann, and told her that I would like to, ah, come to Los Angeles. My parents didn't agree, because, for one thing, they -- they wanted to know, "Well, what is journalism, anyway? And how are you going to make a living at that? And who's going to be out there, Libby? That's 3500 miles away." But, I was accepted and I came in 19-- August of 1945 to, ah, work as the women's editor for The Pittsburgh Courier.

INT: What was LA like when you came?
LC: When I first came to Los Angeles, I thought that it was the most beautiful place that I'd ever been. In fact, I considered a little part of heaven. The houses were so beautiful. The people were very cordial and there was sunshine all the time and, ah, I just -- I was just in love with it and enthused with the place. At that time, as well as now, there isn't the cohesiveness in the black community. And I attribute it to the fact that, ahm, people have come from all over the country bringing with them their mores and culture and everything, and also their -- their fears and their apprehensions. And, therefore, ah, there is a tendency for people to be, ah, more or less isolated from one another, with the exception of when they get together for the social events. And that is true now as it was in 1945.

INT: How did you meet Charlotta Bass?
LC: I went to the office to introduce myself.
LC: One of the first things that I did when I came to Los Angeles was to try, ah, to get acquainted with my, ahm, ah, fellow newspaper people. And in the course of that, I visited The California Eagle and I met Mrs. Charlotta Bass, who was the publisher and who had, ah, quite a reputation on the East Coast as being a fighter for, ah, ah, our rights and everything. And so I went in and I introduced myself and I met Mrs. Bass and she talked to me for about an hour about all ramifications of the newspaper business and then took me to introduce me to the rest of the staff.

INT: What was your impression of her?
LC: When I first -- first met Mrs. Bass, ah, ah, from her -- her reputation, I had thought that she was going to be a hard person and a very difficult person to meet. And I found that the opposite was true. She was very warm and very solicitous and, ah, very embracing. And, ah, I always will remember that she told me, "Now if you have any problems over there at the Courier, you're welcome to come over here to the Eagle and starve with us."

INT: Did you go ever go to the Eagle and starve?
LC: No. No. In fact, we loved her so much and our nickname for her was "Madam" and, ah, she was very refined, bespeaking her -- her Rhode Island background. You know she was from Rhode Island.

INT: What about Herman Hill asking you for the "black slant".
LC: Prior to coming to Los Angeles, I worked on the daily newspaper in Chester, Pennsylvania called The Chester Times. In fact, I was the first black woman to work on that paper and we didn't see angles of stories. We wrote the stories from the standpoint of -- of news, whether it was black or white. I don't know whether you're aware, but Chester in that area of Philadelphia -- ah, outside of Philadelphia is Quaker town and was settled by Quakers. And so, therefore, there wasn't the hard racial lines, ah, between blacks and white as there were in other areas.

INT: What happened with the fight for restrictive covenants?
LC: Well, -- the fight for restrictive covenant. Mrs. Bass corralled not only black support, but white support, and subsequently Loren Miller became the attorney and won, ah, the fight for re-- restrictive covenants, ah, waged primarily because Louise Beavers and Hattie McDaniels and others of the stars had moved to what we called the Sugar Hill section of Los Angeles. And that's where the, ah, lovelier homes were and they wanted to live there. And it was Loren Miller who took that fight all the way, with the help of Mrs. Bass and others, ah, to win the restrictive covenant fight.

INT: Why was that fight important?
LC: The fight to end the restrictive covenants was -- was important because, as I -- I will reiterate, that with the expansion of, ah, -- of, ah, people coming here from everywhere, there needed to be adequate housing and there wasn't housing even for, ah, grassroots people. And, ah, certainly not for professionals or actors or actresses who wanted to move out and move up. And as recent as I think it was 1962, there was still covenants when Nat King Cole tried to buy in one of the, ah, restricted areas.

INT: Did you try to get a job at the LA Times?
LC: When I first came to Los Angeles, I mean just for the heck of it, I, ahm, had formerly worked for The Chester Times, which was a daily in my home town of Chester, Pennsylvania. So I went to The Los Angeles Times because I thought that it was time that they, ahm, integrated and I went to The Los Angeles Times on six different occasions to see if I could get employment. And they kept telling me to come back and to come back and I went back. And finally, ahm, one of the women's editors, Elizabeth Wilson was her name, she came out and told me, she said, "You will never get a job here," you know? And so she said, ah, "If I were you, I wouldn't come anymore." But I made it a crusade and in 194-- 1952, when I went to Europe, I carried credentials from The Los Angeles Times and did a series of articles on blacks living abroad.

INT: How did you feel about that initial rejection?
LC: I felt crushed because I thought that having worked on The Chester Times, that I could work -- ah, I could be a journalist anywhere in the world, so to speak. And, ah, I -- I felt -- I felt overt discrimination for the first time.

INT: How were black journalists treated by the black community?
LC: When I came to Los Angeles to work for The Pittsburgh Courier, ahm, I was surprised to find out the black journalists were almost considered stars as well as those in Hollywood. And, ah, we enjoyed the -- the, ahm, respect and the camaraderie and the praise of practically all of the people because we were in contact with the people on a daily basis. And when we went someplace or went to do a story or like that, we were accorded every courtesy.

INT: Tell me how you'd get a little money on the side as a journalist.
LC: I don't want you to think that it was a bribe, but in some instances if we went to cover key things, well, ahm, the host would sometimes say, "Don't forget me," and on occasions it wouldn't be the stars or the -- or -- or the host. It would probably be just somebody in the audience that would say, "Remember that you saw me." And they would press money in your hands.

INT: What did they mean when they said, "Don't forget you saw me"?
LC: When we went to these affairs and, ahm, we --when we covered different affairs and, ah, we met people, several of 'em would say at times, "Don't forget that you saw me," and it would mean that you do just that. In your writing, you would remember that they were there.

INT: So it was a way to get your picture or your name in the paper?
LC: Mm-hm.

INT: What did you, as a black woman, bring to journalism?
LC: I -- I think that as a black woman, I have brought to journalism more sensitivity. I think that the average black man, ah, sees journalism as just another job. But I think that with women, ah, we see it as a means of not only, ah, occupation for ourselves, but as a future for our children to go into.

INT: How was the Sentinel founded?
LC: Leon Washington came from Kansas City in 1932 at the behest of his, ah, cousin, Loren Miller, who was at that time working for The California Eagle. And Leon got a job on The California, ah, Eagle, but, ah, he and Mrs. Bass didn't hit it off and so he founded a shopper, ah, which was a throw-away paper, in 1932. And, ah, then went on to rename the shopper -- it was called The Central Avenue Shopper -- and, ah, he, ah, changed the name of shopper to The Los Angeles Sentinel in 1934.

INT: The Sentinel and the Eagle became competitors?
LC: Oh, yes. The Sentinel and the Eagle became very competitive because Mrs. Bass was pushing, ahm, education and housing and so, ah, Leon Washington took, ah, jobs as the theme of the Eagle -- I mean of The Los Angeles Sentinel, excuse me. And, ah, of course, Mrs. Bass' paper at that time had been around for 60 years and had -- didn't have any formidable ah, ahm, competition, but Leon was very
co-- popular and, of course, Loren was, ah, ah, his cousin. And, ah, they new everybody and so, ah, ah, the papers became very competitive (Unintell.).

INT: What were the negatives of having white advertisers on black papers.
LC: Well ... I have always observed from the beginning that the, ah, black newspapers lacked two things. Ah, they lacked advertising and circulation. And, ah, these are the twin taboos for, ah, black newspapers because you can't succeed with one without the other. And we have never achieved the epitome for both and back then, ah, there were few, ah, white advertisers that would even consider advertising in black newspapers because they felt that economically we did not have the money to support their products, anyway.

INT: When black newspapers got the white advertisers, however, did black papers lost freedom ?...
LC: I agree with that. I agree that black newspapers then, as now, ah, don't have the freedom. Advertisers -- white advertisers changed the black press during the '40s and '50s primarily, ah, because, ah, black newspapers could no longer be as militant as they were before, and the subject matter had to change somewhat on their front pages. They could no longer banner line police brutality or, ahm, housing denial and that type of thing because they had accepted white advertising. And, ahm, the whites were not gonna give them a cudgel to beat them over the head with. And that cudgel was advertising.

INT: What effect did the great black writers have on you as a reader?
LC: The great writers of that day, I think that young people, young reporters and journalists like myself, we looked up to them because, ah, we felt that they had had the experiences and that they chronicled the experiences and was an expression that, ahm, ah, an expression that we can hang onto and whereby we could become better journalists.

INT: Were there more opportunities for women in the West?
LC: Yes. I think that, ah, the opportunities for women in Los Angeles in journalism was greater than it was in the East. And, ah, I believe that this was because, ah, journalism had always been an ol' boy network and that women were confined primarily to the, ah, ah, women's section and the social section or the family section, ah, per se. But when you came West, if you had the credentials as a journalist, I mean you could, ah, rise to your own ability to succeed.

INT: Tell me about Femme.
LC: I'd rather not

INT: What happened to the black papers?
LC: The black papers have declined because there isn't this fire in the gut of -- of, ah, people, ah, to either start new papers or to, ah, carry on where their predecessors or their fathers and forefathers or like that, ah, left off. And economically, conditions have changed. Technologically, conditions have changed. And so it's hardly economically feasible, ah, these days and times for, ah, black newspapers to succeed, ah, notwithstanding the fact that now, ah, white newspapers have opened up and there's black journalists on, ah, white newspapers and, ah, they come into your community and they get the stories and they go have somebody to serve as resource people to get the stories.

INT: Back then what was the role of the black newspapers?
LC: The central role of the black newspapers in the '30s and -- and '40s, I -- I consider it the ramrod and, ah, the -- also the intelligence or the information factor for, ah, the black community. We had no other way, ah, to get our news but through black newspapers. Radio hadn't opened up. There wasn't any such thing in the '30s and '40s as television. And so our main source of, ah, information was through the black newspapers.

INT: How did it feel to work on a black newspaper back then?
LC: Years ago I felt working on the black paper that I had reached the epitome of everything. I felt very proud. I felt very euphoric. I felt very independent, and, ah, I felt that there was a future for me in -- in, ah, black journalism. I felt as though I was contributing and, ah, to our community. And so I mean I'm here today, after 55 years, to attest to this fact.

INT: Why did the Eagle fold?
LC: The lack of support -- ah, after Mrs. Bass, ah, dabbled in communist politics, I think that her support eroded, plus the fact that she was getting older, and, ah, the support and the subscriptions and one thing or another for the Eagle just wasn't there anymore. Ah, the Sentinel had become the dominant publication ... in the community. (END INTERVIEW)