Ed Bradley
Ed Bradley, a Black teacher and journalist, was born on this date in 1941.
Born in Philadelphia, Ed Rudolph Bradley grew up in a single-parent household and learned the value of hard work from his mother. Bradley once recalled that his parents worked 20-hour days at two jobs apiece. "I was told, 'You can be anything you want, kid,'" he once told an interviewer. "When you hear that often enough, you believe it."
He attended Cheyney State College, graduating in 1964 with a degree in Education. Bradley’s first job was teaching sixth grade. While teaching, he also worked at WDAS in Philadelphia, initially for free and later for minimum wage. He programmed music, read the news, and covered basketball games. His introduction to news reporting came during the riots in Philadelphia in the 1960s.
In 1967, he landed a full-time job at WCBS radio in New York City. Four years later, he moved to Paris. He became a stringer for CBS News in France mainly for financial reasons. He covered the Paris Peace Talks which negotiated the end of the Vietnam War. In 1972, he was transferred to Saigon to cover the ongoing war.
He also spent time in Phnom Penh covering the war in Cambodia, where a mortar round injured him. In 1974, he moved to Washington, D. C. He covered the Jimmy Carter campaign for the presidency in 1976 and then became a CBS News White House correspondent for two years.
From 1978 to 1981, he served as a principal correspondent for CBS Reports. In 1981, he joined the staff of 60 Minutes when Dan Rather left to replace Walter Cronkite as the anchor of the CBS Evening News. He was there for over 20 years. Ed Bradley died of leukemia at Mount Sinai Hospital on November 8, 2006.
