National Alliance of Third World Journalists

The National Alliance of Third World Journalists was a membership Non-governmental organization of U.S. journalists and media professionals.

Clarence Lusane is the former chair of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists. Gwen McKinney was co-founder and national co-coordinator of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists. Rosemari Mealy is a founding member of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists. Glen Ford is a executive board member of the NATWJ.

Soviet front-International Association of Journalists

Alice Palmer, editor of the Black Press Review was elected International Organization of Journalists vice president for North America at the organization's 10th Congress, October 20-23 1986, in Prague Czechoslovakia. She also traveled to the Soviet Union and Bulgaria during the same trip. Alice Palmer's IOJ duties were to include co-ordinating the activities of IOJ chapters in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean..

Other U.S. attendees included Jan Carew of Black Press Institute, Simon Gerson and Jose Soler of the U.S. branch of IOJ and Gwen McKinney and Leila McDowell-Head of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists.

The IOJ was a Soviet front operation, based in Prague until its expulsion by the Czech government in 1995.

East Bloc visit

In 1985 Alice Palmer was part of a delegation of 16 Afro-American journalists to the Soviet Union, German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia.

The delegation consisted of

• Robert Chrisman Editor and publisher of The Black Scholar
• Utrice Leid Managing editor New York City Sun
• John Williams Photographer, New York City Sun
• Marcia Keizs Editor of the Carib Sun
• Ben Dupuy Director of Haiti Progress
• Terry Johnson Reporter for the Philadelphia Enquirer
• John Woodford National Alliance of Third World Journalists
• Charles Belle Syndicated business columnist representing the National Black Publishers Association
• Valerie Van Isler International news staff, Pacifica Radio, New York
• Lena Sherrod Director of The Peoples Institute of Economics
• Joe Walker International Organization of Journalists US
• Edward Palmer President Black Press Institute
• Jan Carew Executive Board PresidentBlack Press Institute
• Richard Hudlin Phd, writer and researcher, Black Press Institute
• Kevin Blackistone Reporter for the Chicago Reporter, Black Press Institute
• Alice Palmer Black Press Institute

The trip was organized by International Organization of Journalists executive Don Rojas, the American educated former press secretary to Grenada's late leader Maurice Bishop, in conjunction with the Black Press Institute, the National Alliance of Black Journalists and the National Newspaper Publishers Association-the US's largest organization of owners of black newspapers.

The trip was extraordinary because we were able to sit down with our counterparts and with the seats of power in three major capitals-Prague, Berlin and Moscow. We visited with foreign ministers, we talked with the editors of the major newspapers in these three cities...

It was a very unusual trip because we were given access...Every effort was made to give us as much as we asked for...We came back feeling that we could speak very well about the interest of the socialist countries in promoting peace.

This was before the (Soviet nuclear test ban) moratorium, this was before the Reykjavik offers...It was very clear to us in our conversations and interviews with people at that time, that this was already something of concern and, something that would be promoted when the opportunity arose, as we can see that it has been.

Grenada trip

In 1983, two years out of college and a couple months before Reagan invaded Grenada, Kevin Blackistone joined the National Alliance of Third World Journalists for a fact-finding mission to Grenada. He was assigned a room mate, St. Clair Bourne.

References

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