PABJ 1973
FROM THE LEGENDS WHO LIVED IT

ELMER SMITH

I was working at the (Evening) Bulletin as a night-side rewrite man full time by May 1973. I had been a part-time, night-side rewrite man for the Bulletin while studying journalism during the day in my senior year at Temple University.

That started in January 1973. Claude Lewis was on the verge of becoming a columnist. Acel (Moore) was a reporter already, and soon, I believe, to become a Pulitzer winner if he hadn't already done that. The big gun at the Inky was Art Peters, a fine writer who came to The Inquirer as a columnist after starting his career at the (Philadelphia) Tribune. Oddly, I don't remember Art as one of the founders.

We began in a place called the Institute of Black Ministries, a huge converted brownstone mansion on the northwest corner of Broad and Girard. It had once been owned by one of the brewing barons who were once prominent in this German-influenced town.

The leading antagonists of our movement were Acel (Moore), Claude (Lewis) and, mostly, Chuck Stone. Reggie Bryant, who was co-producing with Acel a TV news interview show called "Black Perspectives on the News" was an early and active organizer. Sam Pressley, who followed me to the Bulletin by less than a year, was active within the first year or so. We had several women founders (including Pam Haynes, Jan Gorham, Francine Cheeks).

Membership requirements were stringent. You had to have a job not just in the industry but doing journalism. We even instituted a rule that said you could not become a full member without a year or two of experience. We were guarding against the tendency for groups like this to become social organizations. There had been a group called the Black Communicators or something that soon became essentially the Cabaret Communicators.

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