Pinback Button, "I Love Fisk"

This pinback button proclaims love for Fisk University, an historically Black university located in Nashville, Tennessee. The button, sporting the school’s emblematic gold and blue, belonged to journalist Ethel L. Payne (1911-1991). Fisk honored Payne with an endowed professorship named for another pioneering journalist and activist, the Ida B. Wells Chair in Journalism and Mass Communication. As its first recipient, Payne taught classes and mentored students during the 1982-83 academic year. A Chicago native, Payne moved to Washington, DC in 1952 to cover national and international news. The lifelong civil rights activist reported from thirty countries over the course of her career, becoming known as the First Lady of the Black Press.