….the 40th anniversary of the event that spurred my first published article ever, done for the 4,000-circulation weekly. It was about a massive anti-apartheid march in Newark, N.J.
I was folded into The New Jersey Afro-American by Deborah P. Smith-Gregory, the article’s key and lead author.
Deborah worked for local Afro legends Harry B. Webber and editor-in-chief Bob Queen. She would succeed him in 1987, becoming the paper’s first woman editor.
From here:
Robert C. Queen (1912-1996) was born in Newark and served most of his life as a reporter and newspaper editor. Queen’s career started in 1938 when he was a reporter for the New Jersey Guardian. Later he was a writer and city editor for The New Jersey Herald. In the 1950s, he was managing editor of The Philadelphia Independent. Subsequently, he worked for the Philadelphia offices of The Pittsburgh Courier. In 1963, he returned to Philadelphia to become managing editor of the Philadelphia edition of The Afro-American. His final stop required him to return to Newark as editor of The New Jersey Afro-American. For the better part of a half century, Bob Queen covered Newark’s political and entertainment scenes, telling stories of interest to African-Americans that tended to be overlooked, misunderstood or forgotten by mainstream journalists. Former city councilman Calvin West recently recalled how, when he and Irvine Turner, Newark’s first black councilman, were in office, Queen made it a point to report the African-American viewpoint. The son of a lawyer, Bob Queen had little formal training in journalism, yet he was one of his era’s best reporters. A contemporary reporter described him as a mover and shaker in the Newark community and beyond. During his lengthy career, Queen interviewed Roy White, one of the famous Scottsboro Boys. He also wrote of nightlife in Trenton, where he played piano in his youth at local watering holes. Like other leaders, Queen gave of his time and talents to many organizations, including the Philadelphia Citizens’ Committee, Sigma Delta Chi Journalistic Society, and the Philadelphia Child Development Program. His honors included an award for journalism from Temple University, the W.E.B. Dubois Award from the Newark Branch of the NAACP and the New Jersey Association of Black Journalists’ award. Queen also received an honorary doctorate from Essex County College, was inducted into the Black Press Hall of Fame and was cited by the Garden State Association of Black Journalists. He was well thought of by contemporaries such as Sally Carroll of the Newark NAACP. As his wife, Edna, commented, ‘Once you knew him, you had a friend for life.’ Old-schooled and gentlemanly, Queen was indeed a friend to his many colleagues and associates.
Drums in the Global Village 