“First thing in the morning my parents turned the radio on and listened to the local talk news station at our home in Baltimore, MD,” says White House Correspondent, April Ryan, who also authored the book Black Women Will Save the World.
Ryan would even give her parents the moniker “political junkies.” Being from the South, they witnessed the evolution of civil rights.
Ryan herself was born just nine-months before civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. Her parents, she says, went from seeing Black folks having “no rights” to “some rights.”
“They wanted to know what was going on in the community, and how it would affect them and their community,” said Ryan.
It wasn’t until her freshman or sophomore year at Morgan State University, while working at the college’s radio station as a D.J., that Ryan says she realized she wanted to be a journalist.
“I wasn’t the hip and flip, cool kind of a D.J.,” said Ryan. “I just knew I wanted to do the news.”
Ryan says, she wanted to give a “voice to the people who didn’t have one” and “information that would impact them.”
While working for a boutique radio network she had the opportunity to step in as White House Correspondent for someone who was “stepping out” of the position, and Ryan was awarded the opportunity because of the “quality of the work” she was delivering.
Today, Ryan is the longest serving Black female White House correspondent. Over the course of her twenty-five-year career, Ryan has covered five presidential administrations with a focus on Black America.
When asked why she titled her latest book “Why Black women Will Save the World,” instead of simply “Why Black People Will Save the World,” Ryan gives the very straightforward answer: “It is all of the above but I’m showing up as I identify.”
“We’ve heard from Black people ad nauseum many times before, but not much as Black women,” said Ryan. “Especially as we [Black women] are rising in worldwide status at numbers we have never seen before.”
In its online web presence, Black Women Will Save the World is described as, “a long-overdue celebration of Black women’s resilience and unheralded strength” and is a reflection on “African-American women’s unprecedented role in upholding democracy.”
Ryan says the book is not just about Black women of note, but also everyday women who work towards change in their families and their communities.
However, women of note are also highlighted in Ryan’s book — black women who use their high-profile presence, influence and passion to help save the world.
Ryan concluded with, “There is something to be said about the nurturing and love that a Black woman offers and how it can be used to lift the community.”
For more information on the longest serving Black female White House correspondent, April Ryan and her latest publication, Black Women Will Save the World, visit www.aprildryan.com.