Celebrating a Legend

Powerful metro area women leaders of the arts, sciences, and culture gathered in Harlem to celebrate the legendary Melba Tolliver, author/media icon (far left and on the book cover), at a private book signing last Saturday. She is seen here with, from l-r, Harriet Michel, Jeanne Parnell, Vy Higginsen and Lana Turner. More than 30 people attended the afternoon soiree — one of several stops on Tolliver’s tour for her “Accidental Anchorwoman: A Memoir of Chance, Choice, Change, and Connection,” winner of the distinguished National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Outstanding Book Award for 2024.

“For 30 years on TV, she told other people’s stories,” according to the press release. “Now she’s telling her own.” Fifty-seven years ago, Melba Tolliver was the first Black American to anchor a network television news broadcast. Her insistence on wearing a natural afro earned Tolliver grassroots-to-global “superstar” status, respect, and admiration.

At the warm event, Tolliver recounted her pioneering journey, and afterward, the women shared their own book aspirations to tell their own and others’ personal stories of chances, choices, changes, and connections made during their lifetimes.

Later this fall, Our Time Press will feature journalist Fern Gillespie’s Q&A with Tolliver, a former Ft. Greene brownstone resident and property owner.
(Bernice Elizabeth Green)