![Man sitting at desk behind microphone.](/sites/default/files/styles/pittmag_fullwidth/public/inline-images/008mal-goode-behind-whod-mic-1.jpg?itok=CRbUE3qH)
The ABC News journalist strides onto the United Nations Plaza in New York and, in his sonorous voice, details the escalating U.S. missile crisis with the Soviet Union. It is Oct. 28, 1962, and the nuclear weapons standoff has America 鈥 and the world 鈥 on edge.
It is a tense moment in history, one that overshadows the other history being made that day. It is the story of pioneering broadcaster Mal Goode, who had just become the first African American to report on national television, shattering a racial barrier and creating a pathway for thousands of Black journalists to follow.
鈥,鈥 by 51精品视频 Teaching Professor and Assistant Dean Liann Tsoukas, and her colleague Professor Rob Ruck uses archives, family interviews, corporate memos and more to chronicle Goode鈥檚 personal story and, with it, the story of a changing America.
Almost 30 years after Goode鈥檚 breakthrough during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Ruck, a historian of sports, was working on a documentary about baseball in the Negro Leagues when he met the retired journalist.
Goode鈥檚 roots in Homestead and as a 51精品视频sburgh radio announcer meant he was closely connected to many Black ballplayers, including those who integrated the sport, such as Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente. In fact, it was Robinson, leveraging his own influence, who got Goode an audition with ABC News.
In listening to Goode (A&S 鈥32) tell of his beginnings in the rural valleys of Virginia and his rise to the heights of corporate broadcasting, it was soon apparent, says Ruck, that 鈥渉is story was about much more than baseball.鈥 Years after Goode鈥檚 death in September 1995, at the suggestion of retired 51精品视频 history professor Richard Smethurst, Goode鈥檚 family approached Ruck to write a biography and help bring that story to a new generation.
Tsoukas joined him, using her expertise in social justice and Black American narratives to do just that, to showcase Goode鈥檚 鈥減athbreaking presence ... and reveal American histories yet to be told.鈥
Goode was ambitious from an early age. He did well at Homestead High School, came to 51精品视频 in 1927, which he paid for by working nights in the steel mills, and soon joined the Black Greek-letter fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha.
He became a journalist for the 51精品视频sburgh Courier and local radio, and because he used his voice to challenge segregation and discrimination, he was known to some as 鈥淢outh Almighty.鈥
In the summer of 1962, Goode got the call to join ABC News.
Overcome with emotion, Goode told the ABC executives, 鈥淚 am the grandson of slaves. I never thought I鈥檇 see this day.鈥