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Story of pioneering Pittsburgh Black reporter inspires new documentary | TribLIVE.com
Carnegie Signal Item

Story of pioneering Pittsburgh Black reporter inspires new documentary

Paul Guggenheimer
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Used with permission of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive
George Barbour was KDKA radio’s first Black news reporter.

When protesters seeking voting rights for Black Americans made the 54-mile trek from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, a Pittsburgh reporter was there.

It didn’t matter to KDKA radio newsman George Barbour that his boss considered it too dangerous for a news outlet to send a Black reporter to the Deep South to cover a racially charged story. He was determined to go. And he talked KDKA into it.

Loaded down with 30 pounds of radio and tape-recording equipment, Barbour documented the efforts of the marchers. His experience there, which included being chased by a group of angry white men, is told in a new documentary, “George Barbour: Journalist” by filmmaker Ken Love. It premieres Thursday at 7 p.m.

The film is being screened by the University of Pittsburgh as part of an online event with a panel discussion to follow. Both Barbour and Love are Pitt graduates.

The 30-minute documentary includes sound clips recorded by Barbour, including excerpts from the speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. at the end of the march. Love matches the audio with film footage of the historic events.

“To be able to work with audio that George recorded of Dr. King was just touching history,” said Love. “To be able to take George’s work and, with my craft, take it to the next step is something I am very passionate about and wanted to do.”

Love said he was inspired by Barbour’s character.

“I was impressed with his humanity, his love of life, and how he faced adversity and overcame it. He is a true role model.”

The new film also tells the personal story of Barbour, who was the son of a coal miner and from a family of 13 children. After becoming the first in his family to graduate from college, he worked at the Pittsburgh Courier before becoming KDKA radio’s first Black reporter, covering numerous stories in addition to the Selma to Montgomery march.

“That’s very heady stuff for me. I covered my share of things but nothing like that,” said Harold Hayes, a KDKA-TV reporter from 1979 to 2016. “I am just amazed at people who are at the forefront of those kinds of things. Him getting that job was a big deal to me because people of color on TV and radio were few and far between back then. That spoke to my career desires and my ability to pursue them.”

Hayes will be part of Thursday’s panel discussion along with former KQV reporter Elaine Effort, Pitt student Ama Germain and Nathaniel Barbour, who is Barbour’s grandson and a doctoral student in physics at the University of Maryland. Ervin Dyer, senior editor of Pitt Magazine and adjunct professor in the Department of African Studies, will moderate.

A link to register for the event is here.

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