Book excerpt: The pioneering TV news journalist shares her extraordinary story in this acclaimed memoir: “A very important book” (Dr. Maya Angelou). As the first black female television journalist in the western United States, Belva Davis overcame the obstacles of racism and sexism, and helped change the face and focus of television news over the course of five decades. Born in the Great Depression to a fifteen-year-old Louisiana laundress, and raised in the projects of Oakland, California, Davis persevered to achieve a career beyond her imagination. Davis has seen profound changes in America, from being verbally and physically attacked while reporting on the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco to witnessing the historic election of Barack Obama in 2008. She reported on some of the most explosive stories in modern American history, including the Vietnam War protests, the rise and fall of the Black Panthers, the mass suicides at Jonestown, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, and many others. She encountered everyone from Malcolm X to Frank Sinatra, James Brown, Ronald Reagan, Huey Newton, Muhammad Ali, Fidel Castro, Condoleezza Rice, and more. Davis spent her career on the frontlines of the battle for racial equality, bringing stories of black Americans into the light of day. Still active in her seventies, Davis hosted a news roundtable at one of the nation’s leading PBS stations. In this way she remained engaged in contemporary journalism, while offering her unique perspective on the decades that have shaped us.