Milestones

Posted by Sharyn Skeeter Nov 12, 2006

Ed Bradley and Benny Andrews were not poets or novelists. However, when they left us last week we lost two important contributors to African-American culture.

You could not have missed Ed Bradley (June 22, 1941-November 9, 2006) if you watched 60 Minutes on CBS during the past 25 years. He reported news on CBS for ten years before that. As a broadcast journalist, Ed Bradley covered everything from the Vietnam War (where he was wounded) to the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign and Muhammad Ali to his startling interview with Timothy McVeigh. He could talk to and file reports on entertainment celebrities, politicians, and everyday people with equal enthusiasm.

Some of his numerous awards are 20 Emmys, a Peabody Award, and a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists. Ed Bradley was a trailblazer for generations of African-American journalists.

Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930-November 10, 2006) was a nationally acclaimed artist, teacher, and social activist. His paintings, drawings, and collages are exhibited in more than 30 museums and galleries including the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum (both in New York); the Art Institute of Chicago; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (New Orleans); the Detroit Institute of Art; the High Museum of Art (Atlanta); the Hirshhorn Museum and the Museum of African Art (both in Washington, D.C.); the Chrysler Museum (Norfolk, Virginia); the Butler Institute of Art (Youngstown, Ohio); and the O'Hara Museum (Tokyo, Japan).

His awards include a John Hay Whitney and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships.

They will be missed.