Journalist Ethel Payne reported from thirty countries in her pioneering career. Trace her global beat through objects she collected that are now in the Anacostia Community Museum's collection.

A Chicago native, journalist Ethel L. Payne (1911-1991) moved to Washington, DC in 1952 to cover national and international news for the Chicago Defender newspaper. She reported from thirty countries over the next four decades, becoming known as the First Lady of the Black Press.

Payne often described her career as giving her “a window seat on the world.” She documented her observations in written and oral news stories. She also collected press credentials and conference pins, many of which are now in the collection of the Anacostia Community Museum. 

This Learning Lab explores a pioneering journalist's reporting on issues related to civil rights, women's rights, racial equality, and nuclear disarmament. See connections between local events and national movements. Discover parallels between the United States and other nations. Ponder how traveling informed Payne's perspective. Imagine how you might have reported on these events.

Where can these objects take us? Our first stop is Indonesia...

Learn about how Ethel Payne interwove local, national, and international events in her reporting. She saw the global  interconnection of individuals and communities. She especially bore witness to the relationship of freedom struggles across national boundaries. Her articles showed readers how the quest for civil rights for African Americans in the United States mirrored efforts to emerge from colonial rule in many Asian and African nations, for example.  We can use collection objects not just to map Ethel Payne’s remarkable reporting around the globe, but also to deepen our understanding of local, national, and world history.

Keywords: Anacostia Community Museum, ACM, African, American, Ethel Payne, travel, journalist, reporter, activist, writing, Washington DC, Chicago, Bandung, Indonesia, Saigon, Vietnam, Copenhagen, Denmark, Mexico City, Mexico, Prague, Praha, Czechoslovakia, Czech Republic, United States, #ACMTeach, National History Day 2023, #NHD2023, #BecauseofHerStory, #MuseumFromHome, #ACMTeach, newspaper, Chicago Defender, Baltimore Afro-American, CBS, WHUT