Barbara Reynolds

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Barbara Reynolds began her journalism career after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio State University in 1966. Although she had been told by a college professor that she would "not make it as a journalist" because she was a "Negro woman," Reynolds refused to accept his negative description of her future and began a successful journey in the world of journalism. Her first reporting job out of college was for the Columbus Call & Post, a black-owned newspaper, and in 1968, she landed her first job with a metropolitan daily newspaper, the now-defunct Cleveland Press. That same year, she became assistant editor of Ebony magazine.

A year later, she was a reporter at Chicago Today, an evening metropolitan newspaper owned by the Chicago Tribune Co. In 1972, when Chicago Today folded, Reynolds became an urban affairs reporter with the Chicago Tribune. Reynolds wrote numerous freelance articles for a variety of major magazines including Essence, the New Republic, Encore and The Black Family. While in Chicago, Reynolds co-founded Dollars & Sense magazine, a progressive periodical for black professionals that now has a circulation of more than 300,000. While in Chicago, Reynolds taught at Columbia College and was a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

In 1975, Reynolds wrote the award-winning biography of the Rev. Jesse Jackson titled Jesse Jackson: The Man, The Movement and The Myth.

In 1976, Reynolds became the second black woman in history to win a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. While at Harvard, she studied constitutional law and also earned a certificate in screenwriting from Boston University.

In 1979, Reynolds moved to the nation's capital, where she became a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, covering the federal agencies, the White House and President Jimmy Carter and his urban policies.

Reynolds also wrote columns for the Detroit Free Press, The Oakland Tribune, Sepia and Essence magazines, and the Pacific News Service. She was also appointed international editor of Dollars & Sense magazine and covered the drought and famine in Ethiopia, the rise of the Japanese business class in Tokyo and the women's liberation movement in Italy. In 1981, she toured the Middle East, reporting on the Middle East War.

In 1983, Reynolds became a founding editor of the op-ed page of USA Today. She had the responsibility for question-and-answer interviews with the major thinkers of the United States. For eight years, Reynolds was a weekly columnist for the newspaper. As a member of the paper's editorial board, she contributed almost 30 years of experience as a journalist and commentator to the formation of the newspaper's editorial opinions.

Reynolds has received numerous awards and accolades, including the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Fannie Lou Hamer Award, the President's Award from the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women, Dollars & Sense's Top 100 Business and Professional Women's award, Media Women's Award for Outstanding Journalism and the Ohio State University's Distinguished Alumna Award. She was also named a delegate to the International Women's Media Project.

In 1988, Reynolds authored And Still We Rise, a book that showcases up-close-and-personal interviews with 50 black role models.

As a television commentator, Reynolds analyzes current news events on Evening Exchange for WHMM-TV. Reynolds has also been a regular panelist on CNN and served as a consultant to NBC-TV on the O.J. Simpson trial.

In 1991, Reynolds earned a master's degree in religious studies from the Howard University School of Divinity.  Ordained in the ministry in May 1995 at the Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church in Washington, D.C., Reynolds serves as an elder on the evangelistic board of Greater Mount Calvary. She is currently instituting Harriet's Children, a drug and alcohol abusers program for female drug and alcohol abusers that she founded and created at Greater Mount Calvary. In 1998 she received a doctorate from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.

Reynolds was included in the ABC-TV special New Passages on Aug. 26, 1996, based on the national best seller by veteran author Gail Sheehy.  Her newest book is No I Won't Shut Up: Thirty Years of Telling It Like It Is.  She is host of her own signature talk show Barbara's Beat and is currently working on her fourth book project: The Memoirs of Coretta Scott King.

As a powerful and motivating speaker, Barbara Reynolds will move your audience through her own story--that of a black, female pioneering the field of journalism. Barbara Reynolds will inspire and motivate people to greater achievements.