We love it: U.S. Postal Service issuing Gwen Ifill Black Heritage Forever Stamp
EEW Magazine News // Notable Women
Gwen Ifill, an esteemed African-American journalist, died of cancer at age 61 in 2016, but her legacy lives on today.
Gwen Ifill, one of America’s most esteemed journalists, is honored on the 2020 Black Heritage Forever stamp being issued by the U.S. Postal Service, Jan. 30.
The 43rd stamp in the Black Heritage series is honoring Ifill with her very own stamp designed by Art director Derry Noyes. The stamp features a photograph of Ifill that was taken in 2008 by photographer Robert Severi.
Ifill was among the first African Americans to hold prominent positions in both broadcast and print journalism. After graduating from college in 1977, she worked at The Boston Herald American, The Baltimore Evening Sun, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
In 1994, she took a broadcast job at NBC, where she covered politics in the DC bureau. Five years later, she joined PBS and became the senior political correspondent for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and moderator and managing editor of "Washington Week" — the first woman and first African American to moderate a major television news-analysis show.
In 2013, she became co-anchor of the "PBS NewsHour," part of the first all-female team to anchor a national nightly news program.
Among Ifill's honors were the Radio Television Digital News Foundation's Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award (2006), Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center's Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism (2009) and induction into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame (2012).
In 2015, she was awarded the Fourth Estate Award by the National Press Club. She received numerous honorary degrees and served on the boards Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center's Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism (2009) and induction into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame (2012). In 2015, she was awarded the Fourth Estate Award by the National Press Club.
She received numerous honorary degrees and served on the boards of the News Literacy Project and the Committee to Protect Journalists, which renamed its Press Freedom Award in her honor.
The 2016 John Chancellor Award was posthumously awarded to Ifill by the Columbia Journalism School. In 2017, the Washington Press Club Foundation and the "PBS NewsHour" created a journalism fellowship named for Ifill. Her alma mater, Simmons University, opened the Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts, and Humanities in 2018.
Anyone who wishes to celebrate Ifill’s legacy may participate in the stamp dedication ceremony that is free and open to the public. It takes place on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, at 11 a.m. EST, at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.
To RSVP, click here.
