{{Short description|American journalist (born 1942)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2013}} {{Infobox person | name = Charlayne Hunter-Gault | image = Charlayne Hunter-Gault 2014.jpg | caption = Hunter-Gault in 2014 | birth_name = Alberta Charlayne Hunter | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1942|2|27}} | birth_place = Due West, South Carolina, U.S. | education = Wayne State University<br>University of Georgia (BA)<br>Washington University | occupation = Journalist | spouse = Walter Stovall (1963–1971)<br>Ronald Gault (1971–present) | children = 2 | credits = ''The New York Times''<br>''The New Yorker'' | footnotes =<ref>{{cite web |access-date=2015-09-18 |url=http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/view?docId=ead/RBRL193SMMF-ead.xml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180602013454/http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/view?docId=ead/RBRL193SMMF-ead.xml |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 2, 2018 |title=Stovall and McKay Family Papers |publisher=University of Georgia }}</ref> }}

'''Alberta Charlayne Hunter-Gault''' (born February 27, 1942) is an American civil rights activist, journalist and former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, CNN, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were the first African-American students to attend the University of Georgia.<ref name=":0" />

==Early life== Alberta Charlayne Hunter was born in Due West, South Carolina, daughter of Col. Charles Shepherd Henry Hunter Jr., U.S. Army, a regimental chaplain, and his wife, the former Althea Ruth Brown.<ref name=Jet>John H. Britton, "Charlayne's Secret Marriage to White Man", ''Jet'', September 19, 1963. pp. 18–25.</ref><ref name=fdr1>Stated on ''Finding Your Roots'', December 12, 2017</ref> Her mother brought her up, as her father was frequently away.<ref name=place/> She became interested in journalism at the age of 12 after reading the comic strip ''Brenda Starr, Reporter''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Synnott|first=Marcia G.|date=2008|title=The African-American Women Most Influential in Desegregating Higher Education|journal=The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education|issue=59|pages=44–52|jstor=25073895|issn=1077-3711}}</ref>

In 1955, one year after the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' ruling, Hunter was in eighth grade and&nbsp;was the only black student at an Army school in Alaska, where her father was stationed. Her parents divorced after spending the year in Alaska, and Hunter moved to Atlanta with her mother, two brothers, and maternal grandmother.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Pratt|first=Robert A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SlN7iicbHMAC&q=%22charlayne+hunter%22+%22university+of+georgia%22&pg=PR7|title=We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia|date=2002-12-01|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-2632-0|language=en}}</ref> &nbsp;

After moving to Atlanta, she attended Henry McNeal Turner High School where she became editor-in-chief of ''The Green Light'', the school's newspaper, assistant yearbook editor, and "Miss Turner High".<ref name=":1"/>

In 1958, members of the Atlanta Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA) began to search for high-achieving African-American seniors who attended high schools in Atlanta. They were interested in jump-starting the integration of white universities in Georgia. They were searching for the best students so that universities would have no reason to reject them other than race. Hunter, along with Hamilton Holmes were the two students selected by the committee to integrate Georgia State College (later Georgia State University) in Atlanta. However, Hunter and Holmes were more interested in attending the University of Georgia.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Collier-Thomas|first=Bettye|title=Sisters in the Struggle : African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement|publisher=NYU Press|year=2001}}</ref>&nbsp;

The two were initially rejected by the university on the grounds that there was no more room in the dorms for incoming freshmen who were required to live there.<ref name=":1" /> That fall, Hunter enrolled at Wayne University (later Wayne State University) where she received assistance from the Georgia tuition program on the basis that there were no black universities in the state who offered a journalism program.<ref name=":0" />

Despite meeting the qualifications to transfer to the University of Georgia, she and Holmes were rejected every quarter due to the fact that there was no room for them in the dorms, but transfer students in similar situations were admitted.<ref name=":1" /> This led to court case ''Holmes v. Danner'', in which the registrar of the university, Walter Danner, was the defendant.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Holmes v. Danner, 191 F. Supp. 394 (M.D. Ga. 1961)|url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/191/394/1450807/|website=Justia Law|language=en|access-date=2020-05-08}}</ref> After winning the case, Holmes and Hunter became the first two African-American students to enroll in the University of Georgia on January 9, 1961.<ref name=":0" />

Hunter graduated in 1963 with a B.A. in journalism.<ref>{{cite web|title=Charlayne Hunter-Gault (b. 1942)|url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/charlayne-hunter-gault-b-1942|last=Nash|first=Amanda|date=March 20, 2004|website=New Georgia Encyclopedia|publisher=Georgia Humanities Council; University of Georgia Press.|access-date=2015-10-10}}</ref>

==Career== thumb|Hunter-Gault in 1975 In 1967, Hunter joined the investigative news team at WRC-TV, Washington, D.C., and anchored the local evening news. In 1968, Hunter-Gault joined ''The New York Times'' as a metropolitan reporter specializing in coverage of the urban black community. She joined ''The MacNeil/Lehrer Report'' in 1978 as a correspondent, becoming ''The NewsHour'''s national correspondent in 1983. She left ''The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer'' in June 1997. She worked in Johannesburg, South Africa, as National Public Radio's chief correspondent in Africa (1997–99). Hunter-Gault then joined CNN as its Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent in 1999. She exited this role in 2005,<ref>{{cite web|author=Brian |url=https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/charlayne-hunter-gault-leaves-cnn/ |title=Charlayne Hunter-Gault Leaves CNN {{pipe}} TVNewser |publisher=Mediabistro.com |date=2005-03-28 |access-date=2017-03-01}}</ref> although she still regularly appeared on the network and others, as an Africa specialist.

During her association with ''The NewsHour'', Hunter-Gault won additional awards: two Emmys and a Peabody for excellence in broadcast journalism for her work on ''Apartheid's People'', a ''NewsHour'' series on South Africa.<ref>[http://www.peabodyawards.com/award-profile/coverage-of-africa 58th Annual Peabody Awards], May 1999.</ref> She also received the 1986 Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, a Candace Award for Journalism from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988,<ref name="page2">{{cite web |website=National Coalition of 100 Black Women |title=CANDACE AWARD RECIPIENTS 1982-1990, Page 2 |url=http://www.ncbw.org/programs/award2.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030314212510/http://www.ncbw.org/programs/award2.html |archive-date=March 14, 2003 }}</ref> the 1990 Sidney Hillman Award, the ''Good Housekeeping'' Broadcast Personality of the Year Award, the Women in Radio and Television Award and two awards from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for excellence in local programming. The University of Georgia Academic Building is named for her, along with Hamilton Holmes, as it is called the Holmes/Hunter Academic Building, as of 2001. She has been a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors since 2009<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.peabodyawards.com/stories/story/george-foster-peabody-awards-board-members |title=George Foster Peabody Awards Board Members |publisher=The Peabody Awards |access-date=2017-03-01 |archive-date=November 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101221151/http://www.peabodyawards.com/stories/story/george-foster-peabody-awards-board-members |url-status=dead }}</ref> and serves on the board of trustees at the Carter Center.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cartercenter.org/about/trustees/index.html |title=Board of Trustees |publisher=The Carter Center |access-date=2017-03-01}}</ref>

Hunter-Gault published ''In My Place'' in 1992 which was a memoir about her experiences at the University of Georgia.<ref name=place>{{Cite book |last=Hunter-Gault |first=Charlayne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0x23QgAACAAJ&q=Charlayne+Hunter-Gault+in+my+place |title=In My Place |date=1992 |publisher=Farrar Straus Giroux |isbn=978-0-374-17563-4 |language=en}}</ref>

==Personal life== While in high school, at the age of 16, Hunter, along with two friends, converted to Catholicism after being raised as a follower of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.<ref name=":0" />

Shortly before she was graduated from the University of Georgia, Hunter married a classmate, Walter L. Stovall, the writer son of a chicken-feed manufacturer.<ref name=Jet /><ref name=Kennedy>Randall Kennedy, ''Interracial Intimacies'' (Random House, 2003), p. 100.</ref> The couple was first married in March 1963 and then remarried in Detroit, Michigan, on June 8, 1963, because they believed that, since he was white, the first ceremony might be considered invalid as well as criminal, based on laws about interracial marriages in the unidentified state in which they had been married.<ref name="Time">{{cite magazine| url=https://time.com/vault/issue/1963-09-13/page/29/| magazine=Time | title=Nation: The Image | date=September 13, 1963}}</ref> Once the marriage was revealed, the governor of Georgia called it "a shame and a disgrace", while Georgia's attorney general made public statements about prosecuting the mixed-race couple under Georgia law.<ref name=Jet /><ref name=Kennedy /><ref>Art Sears Jr., "Lawyer Asks to Defend Hunter's Mixed Race Marriage in Georgia Court", ''Jet'', September 19, 1963, pp. 26 and 27</ref> News reports quoted the parents of both bride and groom as being against the marriage for reasons of race.<ref name=Jet /> Years later, after the couple's 1972 divorce, Hunter-Gault gave a speech at the university in which she praised Stovall, who, she said, "unhesitatingly jumped into my boat with me. He gave up going to movies because he knew I couldn't get a seat in the segregated theaters. He gave up going to the Varsity because he knew they would not serve me... We married, despite the uproar we knew it would cause, because we loved each other." Shortly after their marriage, Stovall was quoted as saying, "We are two young people who found ourselves in love and did what we feel is required of people when they are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together. We got married."<ref name="Time" /> The couple had one daughter, Suesan Stovall, a singer (born December 1963).<ref>Randall Kennedy, ''Interracial Intimacies'' (Random House, 2003), pp. 100 and 101.</ref>

Following her divorce from Walter Stovall, Hunter married Ronald T. Gault, a black businessman who was then a program officer for the Ford Foundation. Later, he became an investment banker and consultant. They have one son, Chuma Gault, an actor (born 1972).<ref name="people.com" /> The couple lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they also produced wine for a label called Passages.<ref name="people.com">{{cite web|author=Pope Brock |url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20109246,00.html |title=Charlayne Hunter-Gault |publisher=People.com |date=1992-12-07 |access-date=2017-03-01}}</ref><ref>"Whatever Happened to Charlayne Hunter?", ''Ebony'', July 1972, p. 138</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/president/trustee/memberintro/gault |title=Ronald T. Gault '62 - President {{pipe}} Grinnell College |access-date=2011-01-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528074543/http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/president/trustee/memberintro/gault |archive-date=May 28, 2010 |df=mdy }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.biography.com/people/charlayne-hunter-gault-37794?page=2 |title=Charlayne Hunter-Gault - News Anchor, Activist, Civil Rights Activist, Radio Personality, Journalist |access-date=2017-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211202513/http://www.biography.com/people/charlayne-hunter-gault-37794?page=2 |archive-date=December 11, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> After moving back to the United States, the couple maintain a home in Massachusetts, where they remain active supporters of the arts.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/ronald-t-gault-39 |title=Ronald T. Gault |publisher=The HistoryMakers |access-date=2017-03-01}}</ref>

==Filmography== * ''Dare to Struggle... Dare to Win'' (1999) * ''Globalization & Human Rights'' (1998) * ''Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television'' (1993) * ''Summer of Soul'' (2021)

== Publications == {{Incomplete list|date=September 2021}}

* "A Trip to Leverton" ''The New Yorker'' (April 24, 1965). A short story-memoir * "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment" ''The New Yorker'' 60/52 (February 11, 1985): 28–29. Talk piece about Darrell Cabey, shot by Bernhard Goetz * {{cite magazine |author=Hunter-Gault, Charlayne |date=July 27, 2020 |title=Hughes at Columbia |department=The Talk of the Town. December 30, 1967 |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=96 |issue=21 |pages=12–13 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/12/30/hughes-at-columbia <!--|accessdate=2021-09-23-->}}<ref>Online version is titled "Columbia's overdue apology to Langston Hughes". Originally published in the December 30, 1967 issue.</ref> * {{Cite book|title=The Schomburg Center Guide to Black Literature: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present |date=1996|publisher=Gale Research|last1=Valade |first1=Roger M. |last2=Kasinec |first2=Denise |others=Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture |isbn=0-7876-0289-2|location=Detroit|oclc=32924112 |pages=214–215}}

== Citations == {{reflist}}

== General and cited references == * Hackett, David, ''[https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/articles/2019/1/21/charlayne-hunter-gault-on-journalism-civil-rights-and-faith Hunter-Gault on Journalism, Civil Rights and Faith]'', Sarasota Magazine, January 21, 2019 * {{cite encyclopedia | author=Amanda Nash | title=Charlayne Hunter-Gault | url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2433 | encyclopedia=New Georgia Encyclopedia | publisher=University of Georgia | date=2004-03-29 | access-date=2008-09-21}} * {{cite web | author=Carol Sears Botsch | title=Charlayne Hunter-Gault | url=http://www.usca.edu/aasc/hunter.htm | publisher=USC Aiken | date=1997-12-27 | access-date=2008-09-21 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517123528/http://www.usca.edu/aasc/hunter.htm | archive-date=May 17, 2008 | df=mdy-all }}

==External links== * {{IMDb name|403095}} * [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4621466 Charlayne Hunter-Gault Biography] at National Public Radio * [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2433 Charlayne Hunter-Gault Biography] at [https://web.archive.org/web/20121211221825/http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Home.jsp New Georgia Encyclopedia] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110407062430/http://www.genconnect.com/2010-aspen-ideas-festival/interview-with-charlayne-hunter-gault-facing-the-first-person-videos/ "Interview With Charlayne Hunter-Gault: Facing 'The First Person'" (VIDEOS), July 30, 2010 at genConnect.com] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110727074229/http://www.maynardije.org/black_journalists_movement/charlayne_gault Maynard Institute for Journalism Education: Black Journalists Movement] * {{C-SPAN|8680}} * [https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/2/civil_rights_leader_who_desegregated_u Civil Rights Leader Who Desegregated U. of Georgia on Student-Led Movements of 1960s and Today], Interview on ''Democracy Now!''

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter-Gault, Charlayne}} Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American women journalists Category:20th-century American journalists Category:21st-century American women journalists Category:21st-century American journalists Category:African-American civil rights activists Category:African-American Catholics Category:African-American non-fiction writers Category:African-American television personalities Category:African-American women journalists Category:African-American journalists Category:Activists for African-American civil rights Category:American memoirists Category:American newspaper reporters and correspondents Category:American non-fiction writers Category:American radio reporters and correspondents Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:American women civil rights activists Category:American women radio journalists Category:Catholics from South Carolina Category:CNN people Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Methodism Category:Delta Sigma Theta members Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Journalists from South Carolina Category:The New Yorker people Category:PBS reporters Category:Peabody Award winners Category:People from Abbeville County, South Carolina Category:Roman Catholic activists Category:School desegregation pioneers Category:American civil rights activists Category:American anti-racism activists Category:Television personalities from South Carolina Category:University of Georgia alumni Category:Washington University in St. Louis alumni Category:Wayne State University alumni