A Conversation with Charlayne Hunter-Gault

  Basic Black
A Conversation with Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Basic Black kicks off a new season as guest host Howard Manly welcomes journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault. This 30-second clip gives you a taste of their conversation.


As images of poverty, disease, and internal strife paint a Western view of Africa with broad strokes, journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault shows the continent as a well-spring of positive change and hope in her new memoir, New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa's Renaissance.

Born in Due West, S.C., in 1942, Hunter-Gault was herself a symbol of hope in the United States' own path toward civil rights. After graduating third in her high school class, she wanted to attend a college with a strong journalism program. So she and her classmate Hamilton Holmes, valedictorian and an aspiring physician, applied to the University of Georgia. They were repeatedly rejected. However, on Jan. 9, 1961, after two years of legal battles and a landmark US District Court ruling, which stated that they were "qualified for and entitled to immediate enrollment," Hunter-Gault and Holmes became the first black students to enroll at the University of Georgia, ending the school's policy of racial segregation. Despite the turmoil that she experienced as a student there, Hunter-Gault went on to graduate with a BA in journalism in 1962.

In the 40 years since her trailblazing experience in Georgia, Hunter-Gault has worked in both print and broadcast media, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, National Public Radio, and CNN. In 1985, she received one of broadcast journalism's highest honors, a George Foster Peabody Award, for her five-part MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour series "Apartheid's People," which captured the personal stories of a range of South Africans. In 1998, Hunter-Gault earned another Peabody for her overall coverage of Africa for NPR. The recipient of more than two dozen honorary degrees, Hunter-Gault has lived in South Africa since 1997 and reports on the continent as a special correspondent for NPR.

In this episode, guest host Howard Manly talks with Hunter-Gault about her fresh perspective of modern Africa. Seeking to redefine news out of the continent, Hunter-Gault calls on everyone to take heed of some common misconceptions about Africa and to support Africans in their quest to manifest their own destiny toward progress.