Pittsburgh native Mal Goode, the first black network correspondent, the subject of a new biography
This black history month KDKA is bringing you stories from across Western Pennsylvania.
"It's just unfortunate that a lot of people don't even know the least until the book was written," explained Rosalia Parker.
Mal Goode was the first black network journalist to work as a national television correspondent in the country.
He was hired by ABC in 1962.
Parker remembers how her father broke the news in their Belmar Gardens home.
"He couldn't believe that as the grandson of slaves, he was in, but he was 54 years old," she said.
Goode graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1931. He wanted to go to law school, but the great depression got in the way. So, he like many others, put on his hard hat, grabbed his lunch bucket, and headed to the mill.
"He wanted to break into television," Parker explained.
Goode was a journalist at heart. So a few years later, he joined the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the most circulated black newspapers in the country.
By 1949, his voice was hitting the airwaves at KQV-radio, one of America's oldest radio stations.
'So this is how he begins to get his platform," said Lianna Tsoukas.
Tsoukas and Rob Ruck are the authors of the new biography, "Mal Goode Reporting: The Life and Work of a Black Broadcast Trailblazer."
We're learning the challenges he encountered thanks to two professors from the University of Pittsburgh.
"Even though he gets a few gigs on TV, the public outrage at a black man being on TV leads to an immediate collapse of those jobs," Tsoukas explained.
Goode understood the times.
He was always a man who fought for civil rights in Pittsburgh and across the country and because of it he made a lot of connections, especially in the sports arena, which would get him from radio to the big leagues.
"Names that are down as great historic figures now, they all ate dinner at 7128 Tilden Street," Parker continued, "He was very close friends with Jackie Robinson, and it was Jackie who made the inroads with ABC."
Goode began his broadcast TV career covering stories at the United Nations, until the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
"It was Mal Goode's, persistent, polite, and even professional confrontation of injustice through his entire life that led him to where he could be and bring others with him and to reshape a media format from within," said Tsoukas.
For 11 years Goode broadcasted from all over the country.
He retired at the age of 65, but he never stopped reporting.
His resilience and persistence are being recognized.
"Now there for it be resolved the City of Pittsburgh declares February 11th, 2025, to be Mal Goode Day."
An honor that was a long time coming.
"It's amazing, beautiful young woman like you and so many reporters across the nation the young anchors that I see on national Television now. As my sister likes to say everybody stands on his shoulders," Parker explained.
