(NCCU Alum) Journalism great Edmonds dies
http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-950322.cfm
By Mark Donovan : The Herald-Sun
mdonovan@heraldsun.com
May 13, 2008
DURHAM -- Vivian Austin Edmonds, longtime celebrated editor and publisher of The Carolina Times, died at N.C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill Sunday afternoon.
Mrs. Edmonds, who had been living in Chapel Hill, had been in declining health for some time, said her son and successor at the helm of the state's oldest black-owned newspaper, Kenneth Edmonds, on Monday night.
Mrs. Edmonds was 80.
Mrs. Edmonds inherited the newspaper, which has been a voice for the black community here for more than eight decades, upon the death of her father, Louis E. Austin, in 1971.
Austin had bought the Durham newspaper the Standard Advertiser in 1922 and changed its name to The Carolina Times in 1928.
A Web site featuring essays by American teachers on the segregation era in the U.S. -- http://jimcrowhistory.org -- refers to Austin's paper as "a progressive and almost militant newspaper." It adds that those stances came with a price.
"Austin received death threats because of his powerful attacks against the Ku Klux Klan," the Web site says.
Austin, according to http://jimcrowhistory.org, "stressed black education, black voting rights and community improvement," on his front page and in his editorials.
The paper became a financial and editorial success, but the end of the Civil Rights Era and segregation eventually led to financial hard times.
Mrs. Edmonds, a 1944 Hillside High School graduate, a 1948 N.C. Central University graduate and later an NCCU master's degree recipient, had a 12-year career as a guidance counselor in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, during which she operated The Carolina Times on an absentee basis from 1971-75. When the paper faced serious financial problems, she took hands-on control in 1975, kept it alive and remained at its helm through 2002.
"Absentee ownership just didn't work," Kenneth Edmonds said. "My mother wanted to carry on what my grandfather had started."
In 1984, Mrs. Edmonds and several other prominent Durham working women, including minister and gospel singing great Shirley Caesar, were honored at the first annual YMCA Women of Achievement banquet.
The Herald-Sun's flagship paper in 1984, The Durham Morning Herald, remarked editorially at the time of the historic nature of the event, noting that women -- black and white -- at long last were being honored for their business acumen, as men had been for ages.
Mrs. Edmonds was inducted into the N.C. Journalism Hall of Fame on April 10, 1988, along with renowned pollster Lou Harris, among others.
"She was humbled and appreciative, of course, but she never had any interest in honors or individual accolades," her son said. "What meant more to her was the cause of justice and the recognition that her work was a continuation of the work of my grandfather."
Kenneth Edmonds said his mother would most want to be remembered for her efforts in the fight for justice, and not just for the African-American community.
"Equality also helps white women," Kenneth Edmonds said.
Before being forced to move to its 923 Old Fayetteville St. location by urban renewal efforts in March 1979, The Carolina Times was located where the Rick Hendrick Chevrolet dealership stands today, just off the Durham Freeway.
Mrs. Edmonds fought that forced relocation for years, saying the black-owned businesses in the urban renewal zone were being paid far less than they would require to move and reopen at new locations.
In fact, The Carolina Times was one of the last three of some 106 black-owned businesses that remained open on Pettigrew Street, once a center of black commerce in the city. The battle became moot in January 1979 when a fire destroyed The Carolina Times offices.
Arson investigators determined that the fire was caused by "derelicts" in an adjacent, empty building who had been trying to keep warm, but some in the community speculated that that explanation was far too convenient in that the fire removed the last hurdle to the urban renewal effort.
Mrs. Edmonds is survived by her son and a grandson, Christian Edwards. Funeral arrangements were incomplete Monday night, but were being handled by Fisher
Funeral Parlor, Inc.
