The Other Harry Webber

As we celebrate the historic victory of Sen. Obama and we approach Father’s Day, I am inspired to share a small piece of history that shows how truly far we have come as a nation.

The other Harry Webber, Harry B. Webber was born in Williamsport, PA in the year 1900 and was the oldest newspaperman to carry an active press credential when he filed his final byline in 1992.

Harry B. Webber had been one of the first Negroes to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh with a Master’s degree in Business Administration. This was indeed remarkable in the year 1922. My father told me once that he could count the Blacks at the University of Pittsburgh on one hand. And that included each of the grounds keepers.

Of course, all of the business major graduates at Pitt had a standing job offer at the Mellon Bank. My father believed that he would be no exception to that rule. And so he was excited by the prospect of applying all he had learned. But while his classmates were escorted off to interview with the Trust Department, Securities Department or Mortgage Department, my father was sent to the basement and presented with the uniform of an Elevator Operator.

Of course, he left with an indignant huff and was bid farewell by the jeers of his fellow graduates who had gathered in the lobby to combine notes on their first step up in the world of corporate finance. My father would not be the one elevating them each morning.

On his way home from that humiliating experience he was painfully reminded of an incident that happened in his Senior year. A well-meaning professor had submitted his thesis on the use of FM radio waves in the Caribbean to create an early warning network for Hurricanes, to the American Marconi division of General Electric.

As fortune would have it, the company was so impressed with the document they sent my father a first-class ticket on the Broadway Limited to come to New York and present his findings to their Executive Board. After a month of preperation by the finest minds at Pitt, my father was ready for this momentous opportunity. He arrived at the offices of American Marconi 10 minutes early and when he entered the elevator with is presentation under his arm, he was instructed by the Elevator Starter that messengers were to use the freight elevator in the rear of the building. This, while wearing a suite, tie and shirt that had cost my grandmother a full year’s wages.

Dutifully, my father followed instructions and took the freight elevator to the Executive Offices on the 36 th floor. When he arrived at the receptionist desk and announced that he had an appointment to address the Board of Directors the Receptionist did not look up from her work but instructed him to have a seat and someone would be out to get him at the appointed time.

Five minutes later an attractive older woman entered the lobby and announced his name. My father gathered his belongings and walked towards the woman who ignored his presence and questioned the receptionist as to the whereabouts of Mr. Webber. “He was sitting right there just a minute ago.” came her reply. At the same time my father announced that he was Mr. Webber. His comment was ignored and the woman turned to return to the Conference Room when my father repeated, “I am Mr. Webber.”

My father remarked to me that the expression of shock and disbelief on the woman’s face was as though she had come face to face with the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln. She found herself at a loss for words when the intercom boomed with the stentorian voice of Marconi Commercial Manager, David Sarnoff. “Am I to be kept all day by this Harry Webber fellow?” Snapping back to her senses the woman tried to get out, “I think there’s been some kind of mis…” when the door opened to the Conference Room and a smallish man hastened them to enter. And so my father did, walking briskly past the speechless woman and into the elaborate Art Deco Conference Room.

My father related that the room went into shock as he entered and the woman scurried after him announcing Mr. er. Harry Webber, from the University…” She never got to finish her sentence. General Sarnoff, upon seeing my father’s dark face, abruptly turned his chair so his back faced the door. The 12 member board did the same. The presentation was over before it began and my father was quickly ushered out of the room and escourted back to the freight elevator in silence.

Two years later David Sarnoff was made President of RCA the first American radio network, a company spun off by Westinghouse and General Electric on the principals first expounded in my father’s senior thesis.

Having just endured strike two, Harry B. Webber was determined that there would not be a strike three. On his way up Wylie Avenue in Pittsburgh’s notorious Hill District, my father met a fraternity brother who informed him that the Black newspaper was hiring.

The Pittsburgh Courier had recently been revitalized by it’s new Publisher Robert Lee Vann and was enjoying a comeback of epic proportions. My father applied for a job as a reporter, but since he had no formal journalism training he was offered a position in circulation.

Harry Webber was able to convince his boss that the railroad was an able and willing partner just waiting to be recruited by the Courier. He cited the legion of Black Pullman Porters and Dining Car workers who, for a price, could act as a delivery resource to the sizable black communities that were sprouting up along the tracks in the major cities served by the PRR.

It was a bold plan and all it would take to make it work would be the establishment of personal working relationships with these Black Railroaders that H.B. Webber would go out on the road to establish. Within five short years the Pittsburgh Courier became the widest circulated Negro Newspaper in America. From Cleveland to Boston my father would establish local editions of the newspaper and recruit local “Stringers” to submit stories that would go on the outside “Local Wrap” of the Courier.

But each time he would lobby the editors in Pittsburgh to let him return to the home office and his own news desk, they would send him off to another city to establish and broaden their circulation network. Finally, he left the Pittsburgh Courier and went to work for the Baltimore Afro American. Instead of building their circulation East to West, H.B. Webber spread the “Afro” from North to South.

His opportunity to become a reporter was thrust upon him by fate. On the morning of Sept. 5, 1935 as he drove through Long Branch, New Jersey he was pulled over to the side of the road by a squad of Negro Soldiers from the nearby Ft. Monmouth. Pad in hand he showed his Afro-American business card ( with a thumb over the “Circulation Director” title) and was admitted to the cordoned off area that lead down to the beach.

Along the fog shrouded beach he could make out dozens upon dozens of bodies that had been washed up on shore. Through the mist off shore he could make out the burning silouette of the SS Morro Castle, a luxury liner that had set sail from Cuba, only to burst into flames before reaching port in New York and been blown ashore by a raging storm at sea.

My father was the first member of the press to reach the scene of the tragedy and filed the story from a nearby pay phone to the dailies in New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

For twenty years he built the fortunes of the Negro Press, but seldom did their fortunes become his own. It wasn’t until he met a beautiful young government worker, married, settled down in Newark, NJ and sired me, that he began to write and report in earnest. HB Webber was among the first reporters to break stories on the Lindburg Kidnapping and the wreck of the Hindenburg. In later years the Newark Star Ledger referred to him as, “one of New Jersey’s formost journalists.”

Now men and women of brilliance and color have achieved remarkable accomplishments and untold opportunities. But for my father, his proudest moment came in December of 1971, when I invited him to a screening at 30 Rock, for my introductory televison campaign for the RCA ColorTrak TV.

After the spots were screened the old man burst out in a hearty laugh. I asked him what was so funny. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “He who lives long enough to laugh last, laughs best.” He then took out a newspaper clipping and unfolded it for me. It was dated December 13, 1971. The obituary of RCA Chairman, General David Sarnoff.

But that’s not the only coincidence that proves that truth is stranger than fiction. For six years H. B. Webber’s grandson, my son Che Webber served as head of content management at Mellon Financial until they merged with the Bank of New York last year. Ha! You go, America.

Stay Tuned