I don't come to any of this without an acknowledgement of where I've come from, and I know it is no small thing to be a former colored girl, negro, black, now African-American in the United States of America with a media forum that is in the homes of millions of people in the United States and throughout the world. I did not take that lightly, and to this day, I don't take that lightly.

 

A group of workers staged demonstration on Capitol Hill this week. 

 

Check this out!

 

Metro department of parks and recreation.

 

All the employees here are working overtime.

 

What's your reaction to all of this first of all?

 

I had been doing news since I was 19 years old in Nashville, and I've done every local story there is to do. This is the days where you took your own camera and you shot footage with a Bell and Howell, and came back and edited it, and wrote the story, covered every octogenarian's birthday, every hundred's birthday. I did all the people's stories which really were harder to do than hard news.

 

Did you get a good feeling deep down inside knowing you're gonna make somebody happy?

 

Because you're starting from nothing, you're starting from you going to a birthday party for a 104-year-old, Mrs. Mims, and there is nothing there, but Mrs. Mims’ family and a bad cake. So I had done every kind of story and covered hard news as well, and always felt that it was not the right place for me. But I had my father's voice in my ear: you know, constantly, well you are making 22,000 dollars and you're 22. I don't know what else you want in the world. You'd better save half your money because you're not gonna make that kind of money forever.

 

When I, you know, moved to Baltimore--I got the opportunity to move to Baltimore--I had the misfortune to be paired with an anchorman, who didn’t want a young black co-anchor. He didn't want a co-anchor at all and certainly didn't want a young female one. It was a very difficult position for me to be in, very difficult. I didn't even know how bad it was. Because I thought they wanted me there since they hired me.

 

They said there is no chance that the strike is spreading to Maryland.

 

I got a huge demotion, huge demotion, I was doing the six o'clock news and they placed me on the new local talk show that was starting, called "People Are Talking".