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| Thelma Thurston Gorham |
Thelma Thurston Gorham, a trailblazing journalist, who in the early 1970s came to FAMU as a professor in the English Department is credited with laying the ground work for what is now FAMU’s School of Journalism & Graphic Communications.
According to the Sun-Sentinel: "Growing up, Gorham noticed that the only news stories about black people she read in major newspapers were those concerning juvenile delinquency or crime. Only boxer Joe Louis received favorable coverage in the mainstream press. The accomplishments by black Americans were ignored, she noted. Determined to fight this imbalance, Gorham decided to become a journalist."
Gorham earned both bachelors and masters from the University of Minnesota and got her start as a police reporter for the Kansas City Call, and in three short years was promoted to editor of that paper's Kansas City bureau. The Sun-Sentinel adds that "she became a key figure in the black press, writing for Ebony and Jet magazines, arranging interviews with leading black scholars, actors, artists and political leaders."
She also worked as an editor of a U.S. Army magazine and was employed by the United Nations Conference of International Organization as a correspondent. She taught at Lincoln University (Mo), Hampton University, and Southern (LA) University.
While “officially” an English professor, Gorham never let her love for journalism subside. She began leading a generation of black students into journalism and soon created the journalism tract in the English Department, which soon expanded into a separate Journalism department. Gorham was soon joined on the FAMU faculty by Robert Ruggles, who later become founding Dean of the FAMU School of Journalism.
A pioneer for black women in the field of journalism, Gorham once said, ``when you put into the lives of other people, they in turn put into other people. It has a domino effect.''
Born in 1913, Gorham was raised in segregated Kansas City. She died in January, 1992.