An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 02/08/2026,
Black History Month 2026
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"Harry, I'm glad you are here."
--Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt
On this very date in 1944, Harry McAlpin became the first Black journalist to be admitted to a White House press conference. Born in 1906 St. Louis, Mo., Alpin earned a degree in journalism at the University of Wisconsin and then worked as a reporter and editor (and eventually a manager) for the weekly Washington Tribune. He then bolstered his professional credentials by securing a law degree from the Robert U. Terrell (husband of Mary Church Terrell --see Lesson #29 in this series) Law School in Washington, D.C. He passed the bar in 1937 but continued to freelance as a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Defender, even while he also balanced a job at the Federal Security Agency and the U.S. Employment Service. For a time he worked under Mary McLeod Bethune (see Lesson #49 in this series) at the National Youth Administration (NYA).
The National Negro Publishers Association (NNPA, today known as now the National Newspaper Publishers Association, mentioned in the previous lesson) had at the time been petitioning the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) to obtain credentials --something that had not been previously afforded to Black journalists. With that hurdle cleared, the NNPA was able to open its own Washington bureau, and positioned McAlpin (now working for the Atlanta Daily World) to attend press briefings at the White House. On February 8, 1944, McAlpin had to run something of a gauntlet: his fellow journalists attempted to bargain with him, plead with him: that they would share their notes with him, anything to discourage him from actually enter the press room. But enter he did, and covered the briefing with President Roosevelt, who (pointedly) shook his hand and thanked him for being there.
In the 1950's McAlpin retired from journalism and took up a full-time legal career in Louisville, Kentucky --as the only Black assistant commonwealth attorney in the entire state. He also became the head of the local chapter of the NAACP. He did briefly return to Washington, D.C. in the late 1960's to work for the Social Security Administration hearing officer, but he eventually returned to Louisville to practice law, ultimately retiring in his seventies.
Learn more about McAlpin's remarkable career at: https://time.com/85901/harry-mcalpin-whcd/
President Barack Obama's concluding remarks at the 2014 White House Correspondents' Dinner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq_wMv_MeQc&t=985s
Next lesson - Watch this space