Page 9 - Florida Sentinel 3-1-19

Feature
UNCF Speaker:
Renowned Journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault Shares Strong Faith Got Her Through And Will Lead The Next Generation
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
If you’re anxious about the future, fret not.
It’s in the hands of younger generations who know that the fight won’t be easy and who are cloaked in the “protective armor” of history.
“They will be the giants whose shoulders we’ll stand,” said journalist Charlayne
Hunter-Gault. “I’m very con- fident about that.”
As the keynote speaker last Friday during the UNCF Tampa Bay’s 13th Annual Black History Month Luncheon, Hunter-Gault shared her perspective on current events as well as insight on her his- toric act in 1961 when she and Hamilton Holmes were the first Black students to integrate the University of Georgia.
Luncheon guest speaker Charlayne Hunter-Gault with the Mistress of Ceremonies, Deiah Riley, News Anchor, ABC Action News. (Photograph by Ricky Roberts)
Hunter-Gault, a native of South Carolina, said the foun- dation for the latter is rooted in her periodic stays with her grandparents who lived in Tampa when her father, an Army chaplain, was away for long stretches.
“This really is a homecom- ing,” she said. “This is where my grandmother would sit me down and teach me things that were important.”
Hunter-Gault, a former correspondent for NPR, CNN, and PBS, said it was her grand- mother who taught her the Bible verse she would stand on when facing adversity to her in- tegration of the university.
But she didn’t initially em- brace her grandmother’s deter- mination to teach her those passages and often hid in mango trees to avoid those les- sons on the gospels.
“I was determined to not learn Bible verses,” she said.
But years later when white rioters showed up at her dor- mitory to protest her matricu- lation at the college located in segregated Athens, GA, Hunter-Gault said she would recall Psalm 23:4 to keep her calm.
“When the rock came through the window, my suit- case wasn’t unpacked and all I could think about was the glass all over my clothes,” she said. “I was not afraid.”
Following that incident, Hunter-Gault was suspended
by the university dean “for my safety.”
She was escorted home to Atlanta under the cover of darkness. When interviewed about the ordeal later the next day, Hunter-Gault said she then realized what she’d sur- vived.
“I didn’t think about it until the next day when the reporter asked how I made it through,” said Hunter-Gault, who eventually graduated from the University of Georgia in 1963.
Hunter-Gault said it was her faith in that instance – and many others to come after dur- ing her time as a news corre- spondent in Somalia, South Africa and different war zones all over the world – that sus- tained her.
“Faith is something we all need in our soul,” she said. “Faith – that’s what fed my op- timism.”
And it is faith in the next generation of “giants” that fuels optimism for the future, Hunter-Gault said.
FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2019 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 9-A