Wilbert A. Tatum, former publisher and editor of The New York Amsterdam News, the oldest and best-known of the city’s black newspapers, and a member of United Spinal Association’s Board of Directors from 2000 to 2003, died Thursday, February 26, 2009, while on vacation with his wife, the former Susan Kohn, in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He was 76.
Wilbert “Bill” Tatum had a long and varied career in journalism, community activism, New York City government and business. As a housing organizer on the Lower East Side of New York, Bill came to the attention of then Congressman John Lindsay during his first successful run to become mayor of New York City. After serving under Mayor Lindsay, Bill later worked in the administrations of Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and Mayor Abraham Beame. In the 1980s, he was appointed to several commissions by New York Governor Mario Cuomo.
Tatum left City Government in 1978 to pursue a career in business. He joined the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York as Vice President. By the time he left in 1986 to run his own businesses, Tatum had been promoted to Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications for this multibillion-dollar health maintenance organization.
With partners, Tatum purchased the Amsterdam News in 1971, and in 1972, radio stations WLIB and WBLS, which became the flagships of the Inner City Broadcasting, a corporation with stations in California, Michigan, Texas, Indiana and New York. Tatum and his company also owned part interest in the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem.
One of 13 children, Bill was educated in the Durham, North Carolina, public schools. He won a State oratory contest during his senior year at Hillside High School that provided him with a $100 scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, that he parlayed into a cleaning, baby-sitting and construction business. He graduated with a degree in Sociology twenty years later, after paying off all his school debts. He attended Yale University as a National Urban Fellow, sponsored by the National League of Cities, the United States Conference of Mayors, and the Ford Foundation. He received his Master’s Degree in Urban Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from The College of Human Services (now Audrey Cohen College) in 1989.
Mr. Tatum began his career in journalism at age 10, when he was trained by his father, Eugene Malcolm Tatum. He served as Managing Editor of the Tribune Publishing Company, a three city chain of newspapers founded by his father, to provide information for Black farmers in three rural communities in North Carolina. He subsequently served as Editor-in-Chief of the Hillside Chronicle in Durham, as well as the Lincolnian, the student newspaper at Lincoln University, and as a Feature Editor of the evening student newspaper of Baruch College of CCNY.
In order to follow his passion to produce the written word for publication, Tatum said he had to leave America in order to follow his dream. In Europe, he worked as a reporter and columnist for Stockholm’s Tidnigen in Sweden, and Akuelt in Copenhagen, Denmark. He reported from Sweden, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Bophuthatswana, Estonia, Finland, Japan, the Soviet Union, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Canada, Mozambique, Mali, Brazil, Capo Verdi, Mexico, Iceland, Denmark, Israel, Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
Mr. Tatum received a lifetime achievement award for print journalism from the New York Association of Black Journalists.
Tatum served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War with the Military Occupational Specialties of Drill Instructor and Infantryman. He was one of the first Blacks to graduate Drill Instructor School in the integrated Marine Corps at Parris Island, South Carolina. He served for almost four years during the Korean Conflict in America and the Far East.
Tatum’s widow, Susan was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and is a holocaust survivor. In December 1997, the Tatums’ daughter Elinor was appointed Publisher and Editor in Chief of the Amsterdam News.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Bill Tatum is survived by brother and three sisters. We at United Spinal Association send our sincere condolences to his family and to his many friends who mourn his loss as we do.
