AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN JOURNALISTS AND THEIR MALE EDITORS - A TRADITION OF SUPPORT

Black women journalists have not been hampered by the sexist attitudes of men to the same degree that white women journalists have been. Sin ce this theme was introduced a century ago, individual case studies ha ve continued to reinforce it. Gertrude Bustill Mossell, Delilah Beasle y and Ida B. Wells were nineteenth-century women whose journalistic su ccess was supported by their male editors; Marvel Cooke, Lucile Blufor d and Ethel Payne have enjoyed similar relationships in the twentieth century. Factors contributing to this tendency are that African-Americ an women have a tradition Of working outside the home, that African-Am erican editors historically have been both journalists and racial acti vists, and that male editors have tended to treat African-American wom en journalists much as fathers treat their daughters.