Hollie West

Hollie West never passed up an opportunity to write long

• Leandra Abbott
• Lenore Allen
• Ed Bradley
• Audreen Buffalo
• Earl Caldwell
• Marquita Pool-Eckert
• Joy Elliott
• Gerald Fraser
• Charlayne Hunter-Gault
• George Goodman
• Charles Hobson
• Jane Irving
• Claude Lewis
• Nancy Maynard
• Gil Scott
• Wallace Terry
• Melba Tolliver
• Mel Watkins
• Hollie West

While a life style reporter for the Washington Post, West got choice assignments such as profiles on Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. His piece on Ellison ran in Q & A form in a three-part series that totaled more than 400 column inches. His features were known to average a couple of hundred inches. He once profiled Robert Beck, a former pimp known as Iceberg Slim, who was writing books and screenplays.

"This was a time when blacks were in vogue," West explains. "There was a great interest in black subjects, a real hunger on the part of editors for black stories.

West says his secret to such depth is the interview, drawing out subjects by engaging them in a conversation. His interviews ran as long as his writing. Once a subject stopped him after three or four hours and said, "By God man Don’t you ever take a break to go to the bathroom?"

West developed an interest in newspapers at a young age while growing up in the small town of Wewoka, Okla. His parents received three papers during the week: the Daily Oklahoman and New Oklahoma Times during the week, and the Tulsa World on Sunday. Emulating his father, he made a ritual of reading the papers, trying to decipher the words on the page. One day when he was 6, he understood a piece he read. He ran into the kitchen where his parents sat eating breakfast and announced, "Fats Waller died!"

Several years later after his father died, his mother remarried. His step-father encouraged West to pursue journalism. West worked on the high school paper and later the college paper at Ohio State where he majored in journalism.

After West graduated in 1959, he enlisted in the Army and worked as a public information specialist for three years. When he finished, he moved to California and began the search for a reporting job. He applied to the San Francisco Chronicle whose editor told him, "Hollie, we want a Negro reporter, but we want one with five years daily experience." He tried the Oakland Tribune, but they only offered him copy boy position. He turned it down and decided to try his hand at the civil service. After taking the exams a friend encouraged him to stick with journalism. He went back to the Tribune and took the copy boy position. Meanwhile, he wrote book reviews for the paper. Within six months, he was promoted to a reporting slot. He stayed there a year before taking a job with The AP in its San Francisco bureau and later the Sacramento bureau. As planned The AP got him back east where he believed newspapers were serious about journalism. It was a lucky break.

Malcolm X had been shot and UPI beat The AP on the story. The AP editor had decided that too much was happening in Harlem and opened a bureau there. He sent West and Gil Scott to staff the office. The vibrancy of the area dazzled him. The black arts movement was in full flight, LeRoi Jones was making a name and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was at the height of his political career. Still, a few years into the job, West grew restless. He wanted to write longer pieces about cultural and social issues. After applying to several New York papers to no avail, he decided to try papers in Washington D.C. He started with a formal interview with the Washington Star and at the last minute contacted the Post. In a classic play against rivals, West got the Post to offer him more money. He took the job in April 1967 and stayed there until 1981. His tenure there overlapped with that of Bob Maynard, Leon Dash and Jack White.