Joan Murray

Murray began her professional life as a court reporter, then becoming a secretary in the Press Department of CBS-TV in New York City, and a secretary to Allen Funt of 'Candid Camera (1960)'. She also worked as a writer for "Women on the Move," an NBC daytime program hosted by television personality Kitty Carlisle. In April 1965, she became the first African-American newswomen employed by a major television station - WCBS (Channel 2, New York City). She co-hosted "Two at One", with legendary news anchor Jim Jensen, a midday news-oriented program that ran from 1965 to 1968. In 1966, Murray became a pilot so the TV station could tell the story of someone learning to fly a small airplane. 'The Small Plane Boom' documentary aired on CBS's series 'Eye on New York (1956)'. In its sequence, CBS enrolled her as the first African-American woman pilot to participate in the 20th-year edition of the famed 'Powder Puff Derby', an annual transcontinental air race for women pilots. With the derby starting in Seattle that year, Murray and co-pilot Merle Starer (née Chalow) flew the cross-country race with another plane tagging along to film their flight, a B-25 with 16 mm cameras on the nose and side turrets. They landed at Clearwater Airpark in Florida the day before any of the other 87 competing planes arrived. After leaving the TV industry in 1969, Murray founded an advertising and marketing firm geared toward minorities, the Zebra Agency, worked for the U.S. State Department to distribute films to African nations, and helped open a hospital and ran a boutique in Los Angeles. After retiring, she donated her archival materials to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Harlem, New York City.