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When Peggy Peterman taught at the Poynter Institute, she gave reporters and editors a story on community folks and a tree in south St. Petersburg. Peggy compared the scene at Fourth Avenue S and 32nd Street to similar gatherings in African villages where the elders sit under great trees and others seek their advice.
In 1991 she wrote: "The average age of the tree's family members seems to be about 40. People from all walks of life gather there daily: the employed and the unemployed, business men and women and those looking for business ventures, produce vendors and their customers, the have and the have-nots, the hungry and the well-fed, the homeless (black and white), the sober and the drunk. Those who take care of those who don't. Sometimes jobs are found under the tree. And sometimes they collect money to get members of the tree family out of jail. Advice is liberally given under the tree, and food is plentiful."
Journalists at Poynter loved the story. They loved the way Peggy reminded them to see people regardless of race, class or culture, to get out and learn about their communities, find connections to the world and write with passion. They really loved Peggy, a quiet lady who fought for over 31 years at the St. Petersburg Times to move this community to see itself.
This weekend, family and friends will celebrate Peggy's homegoing. She died Aug. 19 at Bayfront Medical Center after suffering from heart disease. She'll be remembered as a reporter and columnist, a wise guide, director of the black history pageant and minister. To me, she was a mentor and inspiration, my sister-soul and friend.
I can't remember meeting Peggy, maybe because she seemed to be so much of my spirit. She had the mannerisms of Southern church folk, the firm love and kindness of a back-in-the day grandmother, the determined fight of an enslaved warrior and the wisdom of the elders. She was the griot, the storyteller who passes on the culture. I guess we met in 1986 when I spent a summer reporting at the Times, but it felt as though I'd known her forever.
Over the years, I learned from what she said and wrote, but much more from the way she lived.
Peggy Mitchell Peterman's life was about speaking out against injustice. She wrote with the fire of a radical and the gentleness of a Southern lady from Tuskegee, Ala. Peggy pondered when, where and how to deliver her messages, but whether in news writing, speeches or personal conversations, she didn't fail to deliver. She spoke out before it was popular for blacks to make strong statements on racial and class injustice; she spoke out while afros and protests were in vogue, and she kept challenging society long after many of us fell silent. Laws brought desegregation, and races mixed. Newspapers got rid of so-called "Negro Pages" and began hiring staffs that looked more like communities they cover. But inequalities lingered.
So Peggy spoke out.
She blasted "many white people" who are "fed a steady diet of black sitcom foolishness on television and talk show garbage (who) honestly believe that all black folk live that way." She criticized black families for often doing "a poor job of caring for, listening to, informing, educating and protecting their young." She said "too many in the black community are negligent, indifferent and despair of ever seeing meaningful progress in their lives," and too many outside the black community are "uninformed, carry stereotypes or are racists."
Peggy didn't always find success in the way she expected. In 1994, African-Americans at the Times pushed to have her named to the newspaper's all-white board of directors, which had never had a black member. The effort was long and emotionally taxing to many involved. Peggy was out front as the effort failed. But her ideas lived on.
On Dec. 11, 2002, I called and invited her to lunch. "We haven't seen each other lately," I said. "You pick the place, I'll take care of lunch." She picked her house, and by the time I arrived the next day with grilled chicken salads, she knew the news. She had the newspaper opened to an article announcing that I'd been appointed to the St. Petersburg Times board. We celebrated together. She had called a photographer to record the moment. We talked of the newspaper and world events, our children and grandchildren, our church work, and our Delta sorority. We laughed and hugged, and before I left, we prayed.
What I remember from that day was that Peggy didn't express bitterness about the long delay in a board appointment or because she wasn't appointed. I saw only joy.
It was the same joy I saw when I visited her on Aug. 9 at Bayfront hospital. I told her about the Unity convention that I'd just attended, a meeting of African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native journalists in this nation. She was excited, almost squirming in her chair by the bed, smiling and nodding her head. She wanted to know about the speeches by the presidential candidates and spoke of concern about the economy. When I walked out her room that day I thought, "Peggy. My favorite warrior."
Karen Brown Dunlap is president of the Poynter Institute.