November 23rd in African American History – Gerald Michael Boyd

November 23, 2006 Gerald Michael Boyd, the first African American metropolitan editor and managing editor at the New York Times, died.

Boyd was born October 3, 1950 in St. Louis, Missouri. He won a scholarship to the University of Missouri-Columbia and after graduating in 1973 joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where he worked as a reporter and White House correspondent until 1983.

In 1983, Boyd joined the New York Times as a national political reporter. He rose through the ranks to managing editor in 2001, the first African American in the newspaper’s history to hold such a senior position. As managing editor, he oversaw 1,200 reporters and editors.

Under his leadership, the newspaper won three Pulitzer Prizes. Boyd resigned from the newspaper in 2003 and worked as a consultant until his death. His biography, “My Times in Black and White: Race and Power at the New York Times,” was published in 2010.