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PEGGY PETERMAN: 1936 - 2004 // Her words opened doors, minds

 
Published Aug. 20, 2004|Updated June 20, 2006

Not long after Peggy Peterman moved to St. Petersburg, she wrote a letter to the St. Petersburg Times, complaining that her 5-day-old son had been a victim of discrimination.

Twice she had been denied diaper service because of her race, she wrote in her 1962 letter, and a commercial photographer had refused to take her son's picture even though she had a coupon entitling her to a free photo.

"How do you explain to the most innocent human form on Earth that he is not wanted in certain businesses _ not because of his structure, his features or his background, but simply because he is of color?" Mrs. Peterman asked.

Mrs. Peterman, who went on to become a ground-breaking reporter, columnist and editorial writer at the Times for 31 years, never stopped trying to open doors and help young people. She mentored dozens of young journalists over the years, founded and directed a black history pageant and late in life became a minister.

Mrs. Peterman, who retired from the paper in 1996, died Thursday (Aug. 19, 2004) at Bayfront Medical Center after a struggle with heart disease. She was 67.

"Peggy made a huge difference in the pages of the St. Petersburg Times, both through her own work and through the work of young journalists she took under her wing and brought along into the profession," said Paul Tash, the newspaper's editor and chairman.

"She challenged the newspaper to make room for new voices, and she encouraged and nurtured the people who could tell the stories this community needed to hear," he said.

In 1997, the Times created the Peggy Mitchell Peterman scholarship to be awarded to an exceptional Florida A&M University journalism student every year. It includes a $5,000 award and a summer internship at the paper.

Robert Ruggles, then the dean of FAMU's journalism school, praised Mrs. Peterman as a "risk-taker" who was unafraid to take on challenges and speak out.

"With Peggy's name on the award, it will not be hard to remind students to maintain high standards, not only in their reporting and writing, but in their humanity," Ruggles said.

The daughter of a prominent civil rights activist, William P. Mitchell, Mrs. Peterman was raised in Tuskegee, Ala., and educated at Howard University. Though she graduated with a law degree, she passed up the courtroom for the newsroom, arguing her case for justice from the perspective of a black female journalist.

At the Times, she was instrumental in eliminating the part of the newspaper where her work first appeared.

She was hired in 1965 to work for its Negro news page, which was distributed only to black neighborhoods. She soon came to see this page as a symbol of segregation and a vehicle for Jim Crow real estate ads.

In a memo to her white editors, she urged the Times to incorporate news of the black community in the entire newspaper. In May 1967, the Negro news page was abolished.

"I'm glad that they recognized the inequity, but I'm not sure we ever got incorporated like we should have," Mrs. Peterman said years later. "There's still a lot of work to do in balancing the news. But I've got to admit it is much, much better than it was."

After 20 years in newsfeatures, writing mostly about white families, she was invited by an editor to write columns from a black perspective. She jumped at the chance to fill what she saw as a gap in the news _ "letting people understand our hopes, and dreams, and disappointments."

She joined the Times editorial board in 1994 and continued to write about social, international and children's issues.

"My ambition as a journalist was always to help the public understand who and what the African-American family and culture was all about," she wrote in May 1996.

"When I started writing columns, I tried to paint the pictures of black people's hopes, dreams, triumphs, tragedies, successes with a brush that helped readers gain historical, cultural and spiritual knowledge. That dream has often made this journey long and sometimes wearisome, but it also has been instructive, enlightening, and sometimes exhilarating."

Vanessa Williams, a former Times reporter who is now an assistant city editor at the Washington Post, remembered Mrs. Peterman fondly.

"She was like a big sister in the newsroom, supportive, protective," Williams said. "She showed me, a young reporter, the ropes of the business, particularly the notion of a responsibility to the community inside and outside the newsroom."

A busy woman who supported many causes and pursued many dreams, Mrs. Peterman never fully retired.

She continued to organize an annual Black History Pageant, which she founded in 1978.

The first pageant was a hodgepodge of African-American poetry and music performed by 15 for an audience of 15 at Bethel Community Baptist Church. The crowd grew to 50 a year later and continued to swell, forcing the pageant to larger venues.

The productions began tracing themes such as African-American spirituality, family life and military involvement. Those who attended the pageants applauded local medical professionals and military officials who occupied seats of honor during pageants.

For her role as writer and director of the pageants, Mrs. Peterman was honored in July 2001 in Los Angeles with a Human and Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association.

With her son, Frank J. Peterman Jr., a state representative, she was in a group of five men and women who became full-fledged ministers during a ceremony at Bethel Community Baptist Church in June 2002. After several years of preaching and studying, they received the title of "the reverend" or "elder" and the right to lead a church, officiate at the Lord's Supper and perform baptisms, marriages and funerals.

In an interview prior to the ordination ceremony, Mrs. Peterman said she had received several "calls" to the ministry.

"I accepted my call in '98," she said.

"Most of the time, there's a distinct call from the Lord. It's actually spiritually audible. I received one when I was 12 years old. . . . And then I had another one as a married woman with two young children and I fought it and fought it and fought it," said Mrs. Peterman.

More recently, the call came again while she was in her prayer room, she said.

"I tried to ward it off and received a message that I have called you and I have called you before. So I proceeded on my knees to explain to the Holy Spirit that I was old now," said Mrs. Peterman, whose other child, John, also is a minister.

For her work in journalism, she received the Meritorious Achievement Award from FAMU and lifetime achievement awards jfrom the National Association of Black Journalists and the International Women's Media Foundation. She also received the Delta Sigma Theta Ethel Payne journalism award.

Survivors include two sons, Frank Peterman Jr., St. Petersburg, and John, Tallahassee; and six grandchildren.

McRae Funeral Home will be in charge of arrangements, John Peterman said.

Information from Times files was used in this obituary.