Tolliver, Melba
1939-present · Contribution: 1967-1994
Became the first Black person to anchor a network news program in the United States in 1967 when, as an ABC secretary, she filled in on air during a broadcasting strike, then spent nearly three decades as a New York City television reporter and anchor at WABC, WNBC, and News 12 Long Island
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
A former registered nurse working as an ABC News secretary, Tolliver was asked to fill in for anchor Marlene Sanders during a 1967 union strike and unexpectedly became the first Black American to anchor a network news broadcast; she went on to report and anchor at WABC-TV’s Eyewitness News from 1967 to 1976, becoming, with Pia Lindstrom, half of New York television’s first all-women co-anchor team, and later a recurring co-host of Gil Noble’s Like It Is, also profiled in this collection, for which she wrote and produced a documentary on Gordon Parks. In 1971, covering Tricia Nixon’s White House wedding, Tolliver refused station management’s demand that she cover her natural Afro with a wig or scarf; public support for her stance forced WABC to back down, and the episode became a landmark moment in television’s reckoning with Black hairstyles, later revisited in the documentary In Our Heads About Our Hair. She was an early inspiration to PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, also profiled in this collection, who cited Tolliver as a formative influence, and Tolliver’s 2024 memoir, Accidental Anchorwoman, won the National Association of Black Journalists’ Outstanding Book Award.
Life & background
Born December 8, 1939, in Rome, Georgia, and raised in Akron, Ohio, Tolliver trained and worked as a registered nurse before joining ABC as a secretary in November 1966; a broadcasting strike the following year launched her unexpected on-air career. She reported and anchored for WABC-TV from 1967 to 1976, WNBC-TV from 1976 to 1980, and News 12 Long Island from 1986 to 1994, completed a journalism degree at Empire State College along the way, later taught as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, and continues writing and speaking into her mid-80s from Easton, Pennsylvania.
Sources
- New York Amsterdam News; Our Time Press; Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
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