Abstract
As a toddler, Leon Bibb’s family moved to Cleveland from Alabama. Bibb went away to college, served in the Army in Vietnam, and began a career in television news. In 1979, he returned to Cleveland to stay and worked as a TV news reporter and anchor until his 2017 retirement. This 2017 interview was collected as part of a yearlong, community-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes' election as mayor of Cleveland.
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Interviewee
Bibb, Leon (interviewee)
Interviewer
Perry, Dee (interviewer)
Project
Stokes: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future
Date
2-9-2017
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
61 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Leon Bibb interview, 09 February 2017" (2017). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 501022.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1200
Transcript
Dee Perry [00:00:04] We're here at Tri-C Metro Campus with Leon Bibb on Thursday, February 9, 2017, for the Carl and Louis Stokes commemorative exhibition. And it's Leon, L, E, O, N, Bibb, B, I, B, B. So I will wait till you finish that. And then-
Leon Bibb [00:00:38] As Mo Udall said at a news conference we had many, many years ago, walked in, I think it was Congressman Morris Udall, way back when reporters all around and for the first thing he said was, he who is free of sin casts the first stone. And the question came out, so cast the first stone.
Dee Perry [00:01:03] It's a light one. You grew up, Leon, in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood from the mid-'40s through the early '60s. So I wanted to have you start by describing the look and feel of the area in terms of racial makeup, community services, economics. What was Glenville like when you were a boy?
Leon Bibb [00:01:22] Now, when we first moved into the Glenville neighborhood in Cleveland, I really don't remember because I was three years old, but I can start remembering things when I was around 5. We moved there in 1947, and it was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood at the time. And many of the people who were moving into the neighborhood, certainly the Blacks were veterans of World War II. The fathers had been in World War II, the men. And my dad was among that number. And I remember he tells me, dad and mother told me that when they looked at a house on Park Gate Avenue right across from Miles Standish Elementary School, now named Michael White Elementary, between East 105th Street and East Boulevard, right near the Cultural Gardens, is Park Gate Avenue. When we moved in there, it was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. And my dad and mother did not have enough money to buy this duplex house that they were looking at. And my dad said, the real estate agent said, well, do you know somebody else, like a veteran like yourself from the war, who might go in with you and would buy the other half? And he says, well, my sister has a husband and he just got out of the war and maybe he would be interested or they would be interested. And so my parents went in with my aunt and uncle and two families bought one house together. And the mortgage came to two families at one time. That may be dangerous these days, but they did it. And we lived there for 17 years. It was a wonderful neighborhood. It was a wonderful childhood I had. The school right across the street really was a chief selling point for my parents. And the park right down the street, the Cultural Gardens. And I cannot think of a better childhood. I had an absolutely marvelous childhood growing up. And it later became over the years, it became increasingly Black, the Black middle class moving into that area. And to this day, I can go down Park Gate Avenue and I can point to every house and tell you the name of the family which lived in that house. And I can tell you where every father held his job.
Dee Perry [00:03:46] Did you go outside the neighborhood much when you were growing up?
Leon Bibb [00:03:52] Yeah, we traveled all over the city. Our church at the time was at East 55th and Woodland Avenue in that neighborhood. So we would get over there at least once a week or a couple of times a week for church services or whatever. And we would go Downtown, go to ball games and shopping. Mother would like to shop at May Company and Halle's and Higbee's and the Bailey Company and different company, and Richmond Brothers. We did shopping Downtown. So I would get Downtown with my parents. So this was before the shopping malls began to sprawl in the suburban areas.
Dee Perry [00:04:27] Was there a time when you were growing up as you were maybe approaching teenage or in getting towards high school, where the city began to change? Where- Because it sounds like you didn't have issues in an integrated neighborhood at that time, but I get a sense that the city began to change as more Black citizens moved into the neighborhoods and there were issues with flight to the suburbs.
Leon Bibb [00:05:05] Yeah, it began to change. I think it began to change probably in the mid-60s a little bit. Began to change through the 1950s. It was fairly stable in the early '60s, very much stable. And it began to change a little bit in the 60s and on. Certainly into the the late '60s, it began to change. But it was predominantly Black when I lived there. I went to Glenville High School in the early '60s, and the whole student population was Black. I think there were five white kids in the entire school. So my high school was always predominantly Black. 98% Black. Junior high school at Empire Junior High was probably 75% Black. Elementary school was probably 50% Black. As I look back on my class photographs and look at the kids, a lot of times in the early elementary schools, I did not notice race. I didn't know who was white, who was Black. I didn't notice all of that. As I look back on the photographs, I can see who was and who was not and what races people were.
Dee Perry [00:06:16] You are, as you've described, a product of Cleveland Public Schools. How well do you think they prepared you for your later life?
Leon Bibb [00:06:27] I couldn't ask for a better education. I tell people what Shakespeare I know, and, you know, I dabble in theater. What Shakespeare I know came out of Glenville High School. What chemistry I know, for the most part, came out of Glennville. What biology I know with a little bit in college came out of Glenville High School. The language skills I use right now I learned in elementary school. I learned how to conjugate verbs. I learned how to put sentences together. I learned long division, short division, multiplication. We studied algebra in high school and geometry in high school. All of that. In fact, I often I've got a speech where I. When I speak to educators or when I speak to adults about the importance of education, I take about three or four minutes and I talk about different things. I speak a little French. I speak a little Spanish. I talk a little bit about biology. I give a little bit about chemistry. I tell how to generate oxygen by taking potassium chloride and doing the water method of generating oxygen. I talk about those things. I talk about the signs for gold, which is Au, and the sign for silver, which is Ag, and magnesium, and all of that. I talk about all those things and then do a little bit of Shakespeare and say everything I just told you I learned in Cleveland schools well before college. So that was the kind of education I got, and it was superb. It was second to none, I believe. Second to none.
Dee Perry [00:08:15] So when you went to college, you chose Bowling Green State University. Why?
Leon Bibb [00:08:27] The girl down the street went to Bowling Green, [laughs] and she- That's why I chose Bowling Green. I applied to Bowling Green State University, Ohio University and Central State University. And Bowling Green answered my letter first, and the girl down the street says, you ought to go to Bowling Green. So I says, okay. And my parents said, well, just find a good school to go to. And so if Bowling Green wanted me, then I wanted it. So that's how I got to Bowling Green State University.
Dee Perry [00:08:57] And so you didn't choose it for? For journalism necessarily? I mean, did you have that in mind?
Leon Bibb [00:09:03] Yeah, I had that in mind. It had to have journalism. I applied where I could study journalism, and journalism was always foremost in my mind. Ever since the sixth grade. I knew I wanted to study journalism and be a writer, a reporter, be a newsman.
Leon Bibb [00:09:19] I wanted to be a newsman. I used to look at movies all the time and still do about newsmen. I mean, I looked at movies where there were newspaper men doing their craft reporting stories and going to their typewriters and pounding out stories on deadline and wearing trench coats with a collar pulled up and smoking cigarettes and all of that. I wanted some of that. And so I knew I wanted to be a journalist, and I knew I wanted to write, and I knew I Had an ability to. I had a sixth grade teacher at Miles Standish Elementary School who told me that I had a gift of words and that I could write. And he had seen my writing and he had encouraged me to write. And he told me on graduation day from the sixth grade, he says, Leon, you ought to study journalism. You ought to be a journalist. And that was the moment. That was absolutely the moment I decided what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Dee Perry [00:10:18] So how different was it at Bowling Green compared to the school atmosphere that you had grown up in?
Leon Bibb [00:10:29] Well, it was wonderful. I wanted to go to Bowling Green, and I wanted to go to Bowling Green before they had even accepted me. I mean, they had a special orientation which I was going to go to, and I knew I was going to go to Bowling Green. So I asked my father, I said, well, maybe we ought to drive over there and just check it out before I go there. Now that I'm accepted, maybe we ought to just look at it and make sure it's what I want. And my father says, why do you need to do that? They got books, they got buildings. What else are you looking for? So my dad had a way with words. So I said, I think you're going to Bowling Green. That's all. That's all you need to know. I found it to be very open for me. I'm able to just work with whoever you got. There were about 125 Black students on the campus of almost 10,000 students in those days, 1962, when I went. And so there were very few Black students, but they had what I wanted, and that was journalism. And I'm just able to go into the classroom and learn to be a journalist and learn to be a better writer and learn how to put a story together and learn all about the history of journalism and then study English and economics and all the other things that I had to study. So I found it very open. I enjoyed my college education. I enjoyed my time at Bowling Green.
Dee Perry [00:11:59] And you went straight through from '62 to '66. In the time period, though, when you were getting your undergrad degree, I was reading that you were also doing some field reporting for the Call and Post in '65, one of the stories you were covering was the Carl Stokes mayoral campaign. So what kind of response to the Stokes campaign were you seeing as you were going about the streets as a fledgling reporter?
Leon Bibb [00:12:33] I was there during- I was at the Call in Post as an intern in the summer of 1965. It was three months. And W. O. walker, who was the owner and the publisher of the Call and Post, he hired me. I'd applied at a lot of different places, radio stations especially, and newspapers, a couple television stations, and most places didn't even answer my letter. I didn't get an answer back. So I came to the Call and Post and I had written them. And I literally went into the office, Mr. Walker's office, and told him who I was and what I was looking for. He says, I can't believe it. You're working on a degree in journalism. He says, we can use you, son. We can use you right here. And I took the job of $50 a week, by the way, before taxes. So I took that job and it enabled me to cover lot of things. Now, we had other reporters who were doing a lot of politics. They were mostly on the Carl Stokes first campaign for mayor. And so I kind of helped out on that. But I did a lot of other things. I did a lot of other feature stories. But I can tell you that W. O. Walker made it a mission for the Call and Post to get Carl Stokes elected. And the newspaper did everything that it could to get him elected in '65. Of course, he did not win in '65, but he did win two years later in 1967. And the calling post had done the same thing two years later in '67.
Dee Perry [00:14:06] And when you say they did everything they could that involved what stories? Financial support, editorial?
Leon Bibb [00:14:18] When they did everything they could, they covered stories. They covered stories of Carl Stokes, Whatever. Whatever he was doing, whatever his campaign was doing. And I remember front page editorials. When they did an editorial on why you should vote for Carl Stokes, they didn't put it- They didn't put it on page 20. They put it on page one, above the fold.
Dee Perry [00:14:40] Did you see much of the mobilization of what Carl Stokes personally was doing? I mean, did you get a chance to see him in action as a campaigner?
Leon Bibb [00:14:55] Not so much. I personally did not. I mean, I would read it because I remember I was interning. So they were very careful about, you know, they didn't want me to do the big, big story. I was 20 years old. But I would be around the other report headquarters and we would sit and talk about it, or I might tag along on a story. I do remember taking some photographs of Carl and the campaign. I do remember that because I was a reporter and a photographer with the Call and Post.
Dee Perry [00:15:30] That said, you were invested as sort of on the side watching other people cover the main story. But I wonder what you experienced in terms of emotions when he didn't win the election. I mean, were you invested deeply in him being the winner of that election?
Leon Bibb [00:15:57] On Election Day, now, I was back in Bowling Green because I only worked that summer, and on election day in November, I had gone back. Back to Bowling Green. So I could only read about it when he did win in '67. That's what you're asking about?
Dee Perry [00:16:11] Well, no, actually, I was asking about '65 when he did not win, because there are some people who were deeply invested in the machinery of getting him elected and who were deeply disappointed when he did not win the first time around. But. And I wondered if you had any particular feelings about it or if you just thought it was great that he was running at all?
Leon Bibb [00:16:36] Well, I just- I thought it was great that he was running. And I wished he had won, of course. But we saw that the die was beginning to get cast. It was beginning to get cast. And that Carl had a shot at it. There was no doubt. The man had charisma. I mean, if you. You know Carl, you remember Carl, he had charisma, and he had strength behind him with his brother Louis and with Arnold Pinckney and all the other people. So we were very proud of him. But we were making inroads. And then I just delved back into my studies for my final year of study at Bowling Green, in undergraduate school, at least, and we let it go as it went.
Dee Perry [00:17:24] After Bowling Green, you got hired at the Plain Dealer, and I'm curious what sorts of stories you were assigned to cover for that newspaper?
Leon Bibb [00:17:37] Well, when I started at the Plain Dealer, I was 21 years old. It's heady stuff to be 21. And starting at the largest newspaper in the state, and the 13th largest at that time in the United States, I started on obituaries. That's where the young kids go, obituaries. You write the obituary stories until a new young person comes in, and then you can move from obituaries to somewhere else. So most of my time at the Plain Dealer, I was in the suburban department. I think they might call it the metropolitan department. I covered suburban news and went out and covered stories and did some general assignment reporting as well, but mostly in the suburban areas. That's where I was assigned for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Dee Perry [00:18:29] And it didn't take very long- That is to say, you didn't have a chance to establish yourself very long there before it was time to go off to war.
Leon Bibb [00:18:43] Oh, you've looked at my biography. [laughs] Yeah, it didn't take long. I was 1A. I was out of college. I was healthy and I got the call to report for a physical examination in September of '66. Passed the physical examination in October of '66. They wrote me and says, you're being drafted in November of '66. 1, 2, 3. November the- November 8, 1966, I was inducted into the US Army and came downtown to the Standard Building there at the corner of Ontario and St. Clair. Reported at 5:30 in the morning and had to be there at 5:30 and reported on time. And they just said, take a seat. And I sat until 8 o'clock when the workers came in to process me in along with all the other dozens and dozens of men who were being drafted or who were joining the military. And I went into the service, service that morning as a draftee.
Dee Perry [00:20:01] And you didn't go immediately to Vietnam.
Leon Bibb [00:20:05] No, I was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia, where I did basic training for eight weeks and then I got orders for Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where I would do another eight weeks of what they called Advanced Individual Training and went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and did eight weeks of training there and then got assigned to a unit, a permanent unit at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and stayed there for another maybe seven months or so. I know I spent a total of 9 months total in Oklahoma. And it was in Oklahoma that my name came down on the list for Vietnam.
Dee Perry [00:20:48] When you were sent to Vietnam, were you on the front lines as a fighter? Were you in another unit doing photography, or was it a combination?
Leon Bibb [00:21:03] It was kind of a combination. I was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division and I was out at a fire base. That's a little place in the jungle, a circular place in the jungle, maybe the size of a progressive baseball park, maybe that size, I'm guessing. And you got guns which are pointed out, big artillery guns. I'm trained as an artilleryman, artillery surveyor. And I saw a sign on a tent that said pio, a Public Information Officer. So as an enlisted man, I was not an officer. I was enlisted as they call it. And I went in there and I told a second lieutenant in there, the officer, that I had a degree in journalism and if I could help him write because I was trying to look for a job as a writer of some sort. And he said, oh yeah, he could. So he was going to call headquarters and tell them that I'm taking this guy in to be. Be one of my assistants. And headquarters says, oh no, if he can write and he's got a degree in journalism, we're bringing him up to headquarters. So I went to headquarters next Thing I know I'm working for a colonel, and they actually created a job for me. They created a job because I was to find out later, in the entire 4th Infantry Division, of thousands of men, I was the only enlisted man with a degree in journalism. There may have been officers, but I was the only enlisted man. So they created a job for me, but I still had to go out on patrol. I still had to do certain things, as when you think of soldiering in a war zone, I still had to do that. But I also was, because I could type and because I could take photographs, that they created the job for me. And I ended up doing a bunch of different things. I do know that when I left after one year, they brought in four men to replace me. I guess I was doing the work with four people. I didn't think I was that good. [laughs] But they brought in four guys, and I said, well, good luck. I told them everything I could tell them. And then I said, but it's time for me to go home. But that was a year later. But it was a very interesting tour of duty in Vietnam.
Dee Perry [00:23:22] And you were there between 1967 and '68. And that's the time frame when, back in Cleveland, Carl Stokes is winning the 1967 election.
Leon Bibb [00:23:36] Right.
Dee Perry [00:23:37] And you had to learn about that long distance, of course, but you had a reaction to that win. Talk about that.
Leon Bibb [00:23:45] I certainly did have a reaction. I had read where Carl Stokes had won. I mean, I got newspapers. They may have been three or four or five or six days old by the time I got them, but I saw that he had won. And there were news reports on armed forces radio network and armed forces television network, mostly radio. And I saw he had won. So I said, well, I want to sit down and I want to write a letter of congratulations. Now, I knew he was running for office. And by the way, I voted for Carl absentee from Vietnam. And I tell people that the importance of voting. I've never missed an election. Even when I served in Vietnam, I voted for Carl absentee from the jungles of Vietnam. Well, when he won, I wrote a letter and sat down and told him how proud I was and that I was a Clevelander and where I lived in the Lee-Harvard area. By now, my mother and father had Lee moved to the Lee Harvard area of southeast Cleveland. And I told him how proud I was and that it did me good and that it was the talk of many people in my unit that this Black man had won the mayor's job of a major American city. This was Big news. And it was all over the news, of course, and it was on the magazine covers of Time magazine and Newsweek magazine and the New York Times, and of course, the local papers, of course, Plain Dealer and Chicago Tribune, everybody had that. But it was also on the front page of Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, the Southeast Asia edition of it, which is printed in Tokyo, which we got in Vietnam. And so I got a copy of that paper and I put that with a letter, and I just sent it to Mayor Carl Stokes, Cleveland City Hall, Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. And he got it.
Dee Perry [00:25:39] And that's interesting that- Why do you think it was international news?
Leon Bibb [00:25:47] This is big. This was big. Nobody had ever won a mayorship who was Black of a major American city. And already, early on, I mean, when he won, his name was already being mentioned as possible vice presidential material already because he had won in Cleveland and he'd won in a city that was predominantly white, I guess, two thirds white. And Carl won. So that was major. And that began, as I look back upon it, I did not know it at that time, but as I reflect on it over the years since that began, a Black power political movement. Black political power. And over the years, I talked to Carl and I talked to his brother, Louis Stokes, who was campaign manager or one of the campaign. One of the men behind the campaign, he and Arnold Pinckney. And they told me they began to entertain visits from other Black political people around the country who came to Cleveland to say, how did you do it? And we began to see a series of Black people winning in Hatcher in Gary, Indiana, Gibson in Newark, New Jersey, Bradley in Los Angeles. All the cities began. All the major cities began to. To seeing this groundswell of a Black political movement. And you can take it right back to Carl Stokes. In fact, when Barack Obama won the election For President in 2008, it was a direct tie between Cleveland and Carl Stokes and Barack Obama in the White House in 2008, a direct tie. And President Obama would tell you that. He said that, and he told Louis Stokes that I am here because of what you and your brother did. That's the importance of- That's the importance of what happened in 1967.
Dee Perry [00:28:01] And I want to go back to the letter for a moment because we know about it, because it was preserved. It was in papers that were Carl Stokes papers and are now part of exhibitions at the Western Reserve Historical Society or in their archives. Did you know at the time that it was something that would? That he saved? Was there any? Or did you find that out much later?
Leon Bibb [00:28:37] When they put the exhibit together at the Western Reserve Historical Society on the Stokes brothers several years ago, I got a phone call that we found this letter in the archives, and it's by, you know, specialist fifth class, Specialist fourth class, I think at the time when I wrote it, Leon Bibb. Now, is that you? I said, yeah, that was me. You wrote that letter? I said, I remember writing the letter, and I remember what I said. I said, I'm just surprised that you found it, that they kept it. And I've seen the letter, and they've had it on exhibit, and it's wonderful to look at.
Dee Perry [00:29:12] And it must have meant something to him or to the family that one of the Cleveland constituents was so moved by the victory that even in the midst of a situation that was fraught with danger for you, and you took the time to not only write the letter, but to vote. Did you mention that in the letter, too, that you had voted?
Leon Bibb [00:29:41] I'm certain I did, yeah. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, I did. I did that. I voted for you. And I want you to know that. That I'm over here supporting you, and- And I know you will support me and what I'm all about, you know, when I come home, yeah, I let them know how proud I was and where I lived and when I was in Cleveland and where my parents lived. And I might have even mentioned that I had worked at the Plain Dealer in the Call and Post, too.
Dee Perry [00:30:13] When you got out of the service, you were coming home at a time when a lot of cities, Cleveland included, were exploding in violence. And it was really actually going on while you were still in Vietnam. What were you and other military men thinking, feeling when you were seeing this and then coming back and seeing it, too?
Leon Bibb [00:30:47] You're wondering, you kind of understand why the riots are taking place. You may not endorse burning down buildings, but I certainly understood why some people felt that way. And you had that going on, and then you had Vietnam going on with us and Vietnam simply trying to stay alive and come back home. All of that is kind of in my brain. It's all up there, and I'm trying to figure it out. I'm in Vietnam in '68 when Martin Luther King is killed. I'm in Vietnam in '68 when Bobby Kennedy is killed. And we began to say, some of us over there saying, what the hell's going on back home? I mean, it looks like. I mean, it looked like the whole world seemingly was coming apart. I mean, with Dr. King killed and then Robert Kennedy killed and the war In Vietnam, going on and on and on and on. And those of us, many of us in the war in Vietnam, we weren't even certain why we were there. Remember, I was 21 years old when I got drafted. Well, just turned 22 when I got drafted. And I didn't quite know what to do but to go as my father and my uncles and all the other men in the generation in front of me went when World War II came along and when Korea came along. So you're trying to. I'm just trying to piece it together as to. As to what's going on. I certainly understand some things and other things I don't understand. I'm just kind of a leaf in the wind sometimes.
Dee Perry [00:32:42] When you came back to Cleveland, you didn't stay long. You were headed back to Bowling Green to go to graduate school. But I was curious if you got a sense of what the city was like, if it felt different than the place you had grown up in?
Leon Bibb [00:33:02] Well, I didn't spend that much time in the city when I did come back. See, I applied for graduate school at Bowling Green while I was in Vietnam. And the acceptance came to Vietnam. And I'm sitting on a. A tree stump in the jungle reading this acceptance letter that I'm going to graduate school and let Uncle Sam pay for it through the GI Bill. As soon as I live through the war, God willing, that I live through the war. So when I came back, I went to the Plain Dealer for maybe a couple of months because they had to keep my job and they had to take me back. I went back there just until the new semi semester began at Bowling Green. So By January of 69, I'm back at Bowling Green in graduate school studying Radio, Television and Film. Putting that together with the journalism I had already studied.
Dee Perry [00:34:01] And was that always the plan to go towards radio television, or was that something you had decided on after, during and after the service? Said instead of print journalism, more of that I'm going to go for broadcast?
Leon Bibb [00:34:21] Well, when I came out with the undergrad in '66, my degree was in the radio television phase of journalism. But I'd taken all the print journalism courses. I'd taken everything. So I was just trying to get a job and the plane dealer came along. That's how I got to the. While I was in Vietnam, I looked up one day, I turned on the television. Yes, we did have Armed Forces Television. And there was a sergeant by the name of Sergeant Randy Somebody, and he was in military uniform and he was sitting at the news desk Reading the news, just as I read the news on television. Now he was doing the news, of course, it was with a military slant, of course. And there was a guy who did the weather and he had a map of Vietnam and he would say, you know, up here in Pleiku, it's 82 degrees. Down in Saigon - that's a hot one - it's 95 degrees today. We've got a warm front which is moving in from Cambodia. Did the news. I said, I bet I could do that. I love that too. I bet I could do that. That's how I- So that made me apply for grant graduate school. That's what got me into thinking television and television news. So that's when I got back to Bowling Green. That's what I began to study was the radio, television and film phase of journalism.
Dee Perry [00:35:44] And there weren't back in the States, many minorities doing TV news in, I think, in the whole country as, at least as anchors. So how confident were you that you would be able to make a living in that field?
Leon Bibb [00:36:05] Oh, never confident of anything. I thought I could. My attitude was, let me get myself prepared for when the doors swing open and shoot. Surely they will at some point. I want to be prepared to be able to walk through those doors. So when I went back to graduate school, the first door opened. The TV station came to me and said, would you like to work at the television station on a newscast and produce a half hour newscast using undergraduate students as your reporters? I says, I've never written for television news before. They said, but if you've written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, you can write for WBGU in Bowling Green, Ohio. So that's how I got into television. And I'd done some radio too, as an undergrad. So the doors began to open. And then about two years later, Channel 11, WTOL television, the CBS in Toledo, they called, they dropped down one day and they interviewed me and they said they would love for me to work with them. And so I took a job at WTOL. So now I'm actually working for a living as a professional full-time news reporter and photographer at WTOL Television in Toledo. That's really where my career began on the commercial side of television once I left public television as a graduate student.
Dee Perry [00:37:43] Was it, I guess it may not be fair to say, but was it what you expected it would be, or were you surprised by the world that you had entered?
Leon Bibb [00:37:57] I kind of knew what the world was I entered when I walked into the, you know, if you were talking about race and all of that. I mean, when I walked into Channel 11 television, I was like the fourth Black employee, let alone in the news department in the whole building. So I kind of understood what was going on there. But we'd had the riots which had gone on, and this would be in 1971 when I went to WTOL in Toledo. You had the riots which had gone on. And television stations were looking to become much more diverse, as were the newspapers and many other companies as well. So they were looking, I guess they were looking for somebody like me who could come in and put a news story together and could write and put sentences together and do what I do now.
Dee Perry [00:38:52] And you put it all together well enough so that by 76, you had become Ohio's first African American primetime news anchor. And that was at WM- No, WCMH In Columbus.
Leon Bibb [00:39:09] In Columbus.
Dee Perry [00:39:10] Were there any special challenges that came with being a first in terms of primetime news? Anchorage?
Leon Bibb [00:39:18] Yeah, there were. They began to open up the door. I stayed in Toledo for about one year. I picked up a hitchhiker one day, by the way, I picked up a hitchhiker on Bancroft street in Toledo that I passed and felt guilty about because I was driving a company car and wasn't supposed to. Hitchhikers, of course, felt guilty because I recognized this guy's face, but I didn't know his name. I'd seen him at parties. He was a young student at University of Toledo. And I passed him and drove off for about a mile. I felt guilty and went back and picked him up. And as soon as he got in the car, you know, he started talking to me and saw the camera in the back seat. And I guess he recognized me for what I was doing in television. And he gave me a tip about a job in Columbus. And three weeks later I was on the air in Columbus from a hitchhiker that I passed and felt guilty about. Now this is nothing but the hand of God. That's what this is. So by the time I go to Columbus and I go in as the weekend co anchor and I do that job for about three years and then I got promoted and in 1976 or so to prime time and I'm the young kid who's seated next to the. To the. To the veteran on the newscast, the veteran anchorman, and things just started materializing. And I realized, they tell me, you know, you're the first Black person to anchor a prime time show. That's Monday through Friday, 6 O' clock to 11 O' clock. You're the first in the State of Ohio. And I was in Columbus. So there were some challenges that went with that. I mean, I felt the responsibility, and I still do. That's why I speak in schools and things like that. You know, when you get to this position, you just don't want to get there and then say, okay, I've made it now. I'm not going to do anything else in the community. I'm just going to take the little paycheck that they were giving me. And it was little. Take the little paycheck and go home. No, I stayed involved. I stayed involved and I spoke in schools and they had banquets for me to honor me. And then other Black folks started getting promoted at the other stations, because television stations, they kind of follow each other. If this one does that, then this one's going to do the same thing if that one is successful. So those of us who were in that first area, first strata of getting promoted, we always felt that we got to stay involved in the community, and I still am involved in the community.
Dee Perry [00:42:08] When you moved back to Cleveland to take the job at WKYC in 1979, how did the city see seem to you then in terms of the social and economic climate compared to the last time you were there?
Leon Bibb [00:42:26] Yeah, and compared to Columbus. It took a great deal to get me out of Columbus because I had sunk my roots deep into the Columbus infrastructure. Wherever I am is home. Whether it's Cleveland, Columbus, Vietnam, Toledo, wherever it is, this is home. And let me be the very best that I can be where I'm going to do what I got to do. I came back to Cleveland and the racial climate was people at east side, west side. It was a big east side, west side mentality. And of course, this was before I-480, you know, and I480 kind of drew the east side and the west side a little closer together. I think it is closer together now than it was back in 1979 when I came back to my hometown of Cleveland to work at WKYC Channel 3. But yet, at the same time, the infrastructure of the city, the working man part of the city was still there. I mean, people still, you know, we were making some steel and we were still making automobile parts, and it was still a working man's town. And that's one of the things I always liked about Cleveland. But I found it that racially, the races in many aspects were apart. In some instances, they still are today. Some instances were closer. All depends on where you are, are. But I was told that Cleveland was one of the most segregated cities in the United States in those days, it may still be that way. There's some statistics which show that. So I came back to that, and that was just what we did. I covered Cleveland City Hall. One of my first assignments was cover Cleveland City Hall, City Council meetings on a Monday night. And you would go there, and you could sense the. Mistrust sometimes between the council, then the Council and the mayor, among the Council and the Council, and then you had the council and the mayor. Dennis Kucinich was the mayor, and then you had the City Council. And they were at logic, our heads with each other.
Dee Perry [00:44:56] Carl Stokes had been long gone from Cleveland politics at that point, but Louis Stokes had settled in as congressman. And I wondered if your reporting as TV newsman brought you in contact with some of the things that Louis Stokes was doing on behalf of Cleveland, on behalf of the country, really?
Leon Bibb [00:45:30] Yeah, I covered Louis. I mean, I covered Louis. And if he had a rally or something, or he had a statement to make, I was often there trying to get my microphone underneath his chin to get a comment from the congressman. I covered him. And that's where I got a chance to get to know him. I mean, we were not close in those days. I mean, I was just another reporter. And sometimes I'd ask a question that was pretty hard, maybe, and, you know, he'd shoot me a glance, and he would become the politician, and he would dance around it, but then he would answer it. But I saw a strength in him because he was certainly rising up in Congress, and he had a strength. And so we continued to follow him and follow the news that he generated.
Dee Perry [00:46:28] Do you recall things around town that people would point to and say that wouldn't exist if Lou Stokes hadn't stepped up or pushed for that or been involved in that?
Leon Bibb [00:46:42] He brought a lot of money into the city. He brought a lot of federal money into the city. That's why you've got the Louis Stokes VA Hospital, the Louis Stokes Wing of the Cleveland Public Library. The renamed East 107th Street is now Stokes Boulevard, named after the two Stokes brothers, Louis and Carl. Carl Stokes' name is on the public utilities building. Carl Stokes' name is on the new federal courthouse. I have joked with them about it. When I used to introduce Louis, the late Louis Stokes. I would introduce him, and I'd always say, Louis, you know, before I got here to introduce you to all. All these people there, I had to mail a letter, and I went to the post office in my neighborhood in Shaker Heights, and it's the Louise Stokes post office, named after the mother of Carl and Louis. And I realized I was running late. I had a library book I had to return. So I drove to the Louis Stokes Wing of the public library and dropped it in there. On the way there, I passed the Louis Stokes VA Hospital and the Carl Stokes utility building for the city of Cleveland. And I looked over the river and saw the Carl Stokes Federal courthouse. I said. Then I walked through Public Square, and I looked up at that statue of Moses Cleveland. And I said, Moses, you may be in trouble. We may be renaming the town Stokesville. We would laugh about that, that we would laugh about it. But there was an amount of respect in that story and admiration in that story because in his 30 years in the nation's Congress, he was able to generate to bring in federal dollars for many of the projects that we see in this city. And I say that lovingly. And I've said these things to his face and told his family about it. We've laughed and joked about it. And I do miss Carl and I do miss Louis as well. But that's the handprint that the Stokes brothers left on this town. Made us a better town, I think.
Dee Perry [00:49:07] And you had a chance over the years of reporting and anchoring to sit next to Louis Stokes in another role that he played, that of political analyst. How was he at that?
Leon Bibb [00:49:21] Oh, he was wonderful. Louis and I would get together and we would be at the anchor desk and we'd take maybe a commercial break or we would. The network would cut away, and ABC network would carry these election returns on a nationwide basis. And then Louis and I would sit together and I'd say, well, what are we looking for? Where do you see the strength? And he says, well, we're still waiting, Leon, on the east side wards. When the east side wards come in, this whole election can completely turn around. He was very astute in knowing where votes were and where political strength was for his Democratic Party. And the story that still touches my heart to this day, and I've mentioned it several times and mentioned it to his children, and Louis and I used to talk about it all the time he and I were together. On the night Barack Obama was elected, elected president, I was at the anchor desk and ABC, ABC was giving the rundown on the electoral vote, Electoral College vote. And Louis and I were watching, and it was obvious that it was going toward Barack Obama. One of our reporters in the newsroom realized it, too. And he figured something was going to happen that he could photograph. And he went and got his 35 millimeter camera and he came into the studio through a side door. And the precise moment ABC said, we project with this last piece of vote tally that we've got, ABC News is projecting the next president of the United States is Barack Hussein Obama. He snapped the picture of me and Louis looking at that coverage on the ABC network. And what you cannot see are tears in Louis's eyes. Tears in my eyes as well. I say, what do you think, Louis? What do you think? Oh, Leon, Leon. He says off camera. Oh, Leon, Leon. Yes, yes, yes. And we sat and just looked at it for a while. And then I says, you know what you and your brother did in '67, this is the outgrowth of that. He said, yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. That's exactly what I was thinking. I've taken that photograph and I've presented it to the family.
Dee Perry [00:52:04] That's beautiful. The Stokes brothers were trailblazers in many areas of their lives. What do you think prepared them to take on those roles?
Leon Bibb [00:52:22] Well, if you look at their lives, I mean, you read Louis's book and you listen to the stories of how they grew up in the central area of Cleveland and how education was key and. And how their mother raised them and their father had, I think, had passed away very early in their lives, and how she raised them and how they made ends meet and how they were encouraged to be the very best that they could be. I do know Lewis was a Boy Scout. I do know Louis learned to play the trumpet. She gave them as much as she could give them. She gave them everything that she needed to give them. And then they grew into themselves, and they came up at a time where people were making inroads. The Civil Rights Movement is moving, and they are a part of it here, certainly in the north, northern states. And then the Black political power comes out of that. Well, this is. You put goodness into the pipeline at the beginning of life. There's goodness all the way through the pipeline. I think there was goodness in the lives of Carl and Louis Stokes, which was put in the beginning of their lives in that pipeline. And that's what comes out now. That's the lesson, I think, for children today and for parents today to make sure their children get what they're supposed to get and what they have to get and what they need to have so that they can survive. And that's the education and the never say quit attitude and the ability to go out and do something for somebody else, not just for yourself, but go do something for somebody Else they were servants, they served the public and we all benefit from that.
Dee Perry [00:54:22] You mentioned the children. And part of what this commemoration is is about legacy and about making sure that those connections are there, that that there's a next, a bridge to the next generation. And I'm wondering what you think still needs to be done to continue building that bridge, building skills and networking connections for current and future generations of leaders, not just in the city but in the country?
Leon Bibb [00:55:02] We have to reach along and bring in the next generation. Dee, I had a sixth grade teacher, Robert Taylor, at Miles Standish Elementary School, who put his hands on my 11-year-old shoulders after I had written the graduation play for the sixth grade. He put his hands on my shoulders on that day of graduation and said, son, you have a gift. It is a gift of words. I see you as a playwright or a journalist. He says, now you need to think about that. And then he didn't say anymore. He says, now go have ice cream and punch with the rest of you, your graduating friends from the sixth grade. He took 10 seconds to change my life. That's what I think Carl and Lewis did. They took 10 seconds here, 10 seconds there, 10 hours there, 10 days there, 10 months there, 10 years there to change lives, to make them better. That's what we all have to do. That's our responsibility. That is our responsibility. And I think they personified that. They were servants, tough servants, feisty servants at times. If you got on their wrong side, they'd let you know it. But that's what you do when you are out here in the movement, when you're out here doing what you have to do. And they did what they had to do at the national level and at the local level. And that's why there is such a claim. That's why Tri-C is doing this whole year about the Stokes brothers. They just don't, just didn't decide to do this because they were good guys. They were more than good guys. They were great guys. They were great men who helped make a great city greater and helped make a great nation even greater. That's what they did. So that's the lesson we can draw from them now that the baton has been handed over to us and we will hand the baton over to the generation that follows us as well. So I think that's what I think about. That's why I'm sitting in this chair right now. I don't have to do this, but that's why I'm sitting in this chair.
Dee Perry [00:57:42] A last thought I have because you mentioned the movement. One of the goals of this year of commemoration is to explore the Stokes brothers' impact on political access and civil rights. And I'm curious about your thoughts on where we stand in those areas today. Sometimes it seems like people look at civil rights, the movement, as something from history.
Leon Bibb [00:58:17] I think we are doing better than we were when I was a kid. I think each year we get better as far as civil rights. I mean, there are moments when some people say, oh, they put civil rights back 50 years. Well, I don't believe that. Fifty years ago, I wouldn't be sitting here and neither would you, not doing this. So I think things get better here and there. Somebody told me not long ago that the arc of justice, as Martin Luther King always said, the arc of justice is always moving upward. It's a long arc at times. And I said, but sometimes we run into roadblocks. And another person told me sometimes it zigzags, but it's still moving. Even when it zigzags, it's still moving. We may be in a zigzagging period right now, but we're still moving. And that's what we have to think about. I think that as far as rights, we're expanding rights, we're making sure as much as we can. There are those who would perhaps like to take us back to another time. But we ain't going back. We ain't going back to 1950. I can't go back there. I don't want to go back there. You don't either. But I think in the long run we're still moving. But we have to make sure that that happens. That comes as a direct result. Result of what? We as good minded people. And I don't care what race we are, I don't care about that. What good minded people doing the right thing all the time. We will get there. Martin says I may not get to the promised land with you, but we as a people will get there. Well, I believe that. I believe that.
Dee Perry [01:00:44] Leon, thank you so much for sharing your time with us and your talent.
Leon Bibb [01:00:51] Hey, it's been a kick for me too.
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