A renowned leader in the Black community, Tarea Hall Pittman, known as “Ty”, began a regular radio broadcast called Negroes in the News in 1935 on Oakland station KLS (later known as KWBR and KDIA). These weekly roundups of often-positive news from the Black community continued into the 1980s.
The broadcasts began as a project of the Negro Educational Council of the East Bay. Pittman, who’d enjoyed public speaking as a young girl, had become an accomplished voice in support of civil rights and was a natural choice to lead the program. Pittman was responsible for selecting the content and delivering it in her distinctive, authoritative voice. Pittman became nationally-known for these broadcasts.
Born in Bakersfield in 1903 and the first Black graduate of Bakersfield Junior College, Pittman attended the University of California before completing her undergraduate degree at San Francisco State College. She returned to Cal to earn a master’s degree in 1940. Pittman and her husband, dentist Bill Pittman, were longtime Berkeley residents and the South Branch of the Berkeley Public Library is named after her.
Tarea Hall Pittman died in 1991 at the age of 88.