As we celebrate the historic victory of Sen. Obama and we approach Father's Day, I am inspired to share a small piece of history that shows how truly far we have come as a nation. Harry B. Webber had been one of the first Negroes to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a Master's degree in Business Administration. This was indeed remarkable in the year 1922. My father told me once that he could count the Blacks at the University of Pittsburgh on one hand. And that included each of the grounds keepers. Of course, all of the business major graduates at Pitt had a standing job offer at the Mellon Bank. My father believed that he would be no exception to that rule. And so he was excited by the prospect of applying all he had learned. But while his classmates were escorted off to interview with the Trust Department, Securities Department or Mortgage Department, my father was sent to the basement and presented with the uniform of an Elevator Operator. On his way home from that humiliating experience he was painfully reminded of an incident that happened in his Senior year. A well-meaning professor had submitted his thesis on the use of FM radio waves in the Caribbean to create an early warning network for Hurricanes, to the American Marconi division of General Electric. For the new Lean Advertising Network White Paper |
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Dutifully, my father followed instructions and took the freight elevator to the Executive Offices on the 36 th floor. When he arrived at the receptionist desk and announced that he had an appointment to address the Board of Directors the Receptionist did not look up from her work but instructed him to have a seat and someone would be out to get him at the appointed time. Having just endured strike two, Harry B. Webber was determined that there would not be a strike three. On his way up Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh's notorious Hill District, my father met a fraternity brother who informed him that the Black newspaper was hiring. His opportunity to become a reporter was thrust upon him by fate. On the morning of Sept. 5, 1935 as he drove through Long Branch, New Jersey he was pulled over to the side of the road by a squad of Negro Soldiers from the nearby Ft. Monmouth. Pad in hand he showed his Afro-American business card ( with a thumb over the "Circulation Director" title) and was admitted to the cordoned off area that lead down to the beach. For twenty years he built the fortunes of the Negro Press, but seldom did their fortunes become his own. It wasn't until he met a beautiful young government worker, married, settled down in Newark, NJ and sired me, that he began to write and report in earnest. HB Webber was among the first reporters to break stories on the Lindburg Kidnapping and the wreck of the Hindenburg. In later years the Newark Star Ledger referred to him as, "one of New Jersey's formost journalists."
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