Toki Schalk Johnson
Toki Schalk Johnson was the WPCP's first African American member. She lead the lifestyle page of the The Pittsburgh Courier for decades, and was well-known as one of the best society writers in the United States. She first submitted an application to the Women's Press Club in 1949, but a blackball rule kept her out until 1961, when the club finally admitted her. The following is an excerpt from chapter four, which examines the 1960s and 1970s.
Toki S. Johnson of The Pittsburgh Courier
The black women journalists of the WPCP experienced this same difficult multivocality as they built their own work to express the desires of black women, the black people, and their own community’s needs and desires as well. As journalists, black women were not struggling with the impartial voice that marked most journalist rhetoric at the time. They were fully immersed in the struggle for equality, and their work reflects this struggle:
Many reporters reject the concept of the journalist as an agent of change. A reporter simply chronicles the events of the day, such purists argue, and should not shape those events. …Such an argument would not, however, come from a participant in the African-American press. This history of the black press, grounded in a tradition of advocacy, is closely intertwined with the history of black America. Individuals working in the African-American press have been some of the most important leaders of African-American History.[1]
All of the women’s press club’s black women worked for the nation’s largest circulating black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier (which changed its name to The New Pittsburgh Courier in the late 1960s). This section focuses on two women who were instrumental in the WPCP during the 1960s and 1970s: Toki Schalk Johnson, the club’s first African American member, and Hazel Garland, who was the first editor in chief of a nationally circulating black publication. The group also welcomed Willa Mae Rice, who was editor of the Courier’s religion section and vice president of the WPCP. Rice was well-respected as a religious voice within the Black community, and in the 80s, she was honored nationally for her work within Pittsburgh’s black religious community. This chapter cannot consider her as in depth as her life deserves purely because there is a dearth of information on her. However, the respect she drew from the community, which is evident from her 1980’s obituary and the few articles gathered in the WPCP scrapbooks that detail her religious honors in the 1980s indicate that she is a figure who deserves further consideration in another work. Because Johnson died in 1977, Rice died in 1981, and Hazel Garland died in 1988, the information I have gathered on the women is from their own writings and the reflections of others. However, by all accounts, Johnson, who had the courage to keep her application alive for 14 years, Garland, who blazed trails for black women journalists, and Rice, who served as a religion writer for the Pittsburgh Courier in the 1960s and 1970s, were women with spines of steel who wouldn’t let discrimination—either racial or gender—keep them from going where they wished to go.
As noted earlier, Johnson was blackballed from joining the club for years until finally, in 1961, she was admitted with very little to-do noted in the club’s official records. Georgianne Williams, who was WPCP president from 1979-1981, did not join the club until 1965, but she remembered that even then, having black women in the club was controversial among the white membership. She said of the white women, “And you know, it was some of the nicest people in the club who were against it [admitting black women]. It kind of shocked me.”[2] Williams, who tutored the Duquesne basketball team while she was an undergraduate there, said her frame of reference was very different than many of the other WPCP members because she had been friends with many black people at Duquesne:
But you have to remember that most of these women [WPCP members] were not exposed to black families. They went to high schools that were all white. They went to colleges that were predominantly white. Their social experiences were without any blacks. They didn’t know any educated blacks. So they thought that even if the person was remarkably talented, she wouldn’t fit in. And they had the fear, that if we accept black women in the club, we want to have our anniversary dinners at the Duquesne Club. What kind of stir would that cause? That’s the reality of the times.[3]
The WPCP accepted black women before the Duquesne Club had admitted its first black member (an event that happened in the early 1970s), so every year for its banquet, the Johnson, Garland, and Rice were a visible part of not only challenging the white elitism of the WPCP, but also of the Duquesne Club, which not only did not accept black people, but also relegated women to a separate dining room. To reach the women’s dining room, the women had to enter by a separate entrance at the back of the club. Williams remembered Johnson fondly and said, “She looked like she walked out of Vogue…she was always gorgeously dressed. She was a beautiful woman, very, very talented.”[4] Even with all of her talent and the stylish beauty which is displayed in all of the pictures of her from the time, Johnson was aware that full acceptance would still be a long time coming for her and other black women, Williams said. “She never said much except she said it would be a long time before black people could be in an all-white women’s organization. She …people were keenly aware. She and Hazel Garland, who also was very talented, they knew that it would be a long time before a black woman would be accepted in white culture.” [5] However, after joining the WPCP, Johnson and Garland seemed to be accepted quickly into the hierarchy of the club.
After being admitted to the WPCP, Johnson quickly rose in the ranks. In 1963, she was listed as the club’s corresponding secretary. By 1965, she had been elected to the board. In 1970, she was elected president, a position she held for the customary two years. On her inauguration, then-secretary Ann Zurosky’s notes show the club members were comfortable enough to laugh with and tease her:
Said Mrs. [Toki] Johnson: "Girls--and I say this because I have never known such a group of girls in my life. I don't know how old or how young you are but you're full of fun and talented. To become president of such a group is a great honor for me....Each one of you has added so much to my life...this is one of the greatest days of my life. I just hope I can live up to this honor."
...The meeting broke up with everyone scattering to visit among each other or tour the house which was a museum of lovely art and interesting antiques.
As Toki said when everyone was drifting away..."I'm losing my audience before I begin". (sic)
It happens all the time.[6]
Kidding aside, Johnson, along with Garland and Rice, were widely regarded by the rest of the WPCP membership as hard-working, admirable women who were people they wished to emulate in many ways. “The black women who belonged, I was sort of in awe of them. …They really accomplished more than we did. And they were nice,” Woodene “Woody” Merriman said. “They had to overcome the fact that they were black and they were women, and that’s pretty tough, I think.”[7] By 1973, Johnson’s health was deteriorating badly, and she was forced to move into a nursing home in Detroit. She was still remembered as a pillar of strength by her friends in the WPCP, though, and her own words show that even in illness, she faced adversity with good humor and an eye to a constantly improving future. A brief note addressed to “Dear Maxine,” which was then stapled to a letter from Johnson to “Esther dear” (most likely Esther Elias), says of Johnson, “She is truly brave, isn't she, and I admire her deeply.” The letter from Johnson reveals that even though Johnson was truly ill—she notes that she was 87 pounds when she was first admitted to the nursing home and had to wear leg braces at the time—she was still thinking of ways to be independent and to work:
My only excuse for not writing earlier to thank the girls for the lovely gift they sent...the Golden Apple of Healthy, I call it...and to tell you how truly marvelous you are..is that I seem to be busier than ever, in a curtailed sort of way. A nursing home is no resort, nor a hotel...no one can come and go as they please, but it is comfortable...the food is good...and those of us who don't have TV's in our room, can go to the Day room and enjoy the TV there (I go down every night). Of course I have to do battle with the men who want to see something else always! But I walked out one night and the nurse got the boys straightened out...hommmmmmm for women's lib or sumpin...
The leg braces are cumbersome and heavy, but in spite of them, I'm going to look for an apartment and see what happens. After being my own boss all these years, the toughest thing is the regimentation...worse really than punching the time clock...I eat in my room which I share with a 90 year old doll...she's sweet and quiet, except for calling for a nurse and bedpan 24 hours a day! They mix everyone up here... all race, all varieties of characters without regard for personalities...I'm working on a story that points this up. Such characters! [8]
Johnson died in the Law-Den nursing home, from where she wrote this letter, so she never managed to achieve her goal of an apartment. Her observations about life in the nursing home reveal what she valued, though. She laughed about wresting the TV from the old men who lived in the home and called it her own part in the Women’s Liberation Movement. She highlights the mix of races and “varieties of characters” living in the home, which, in some ways shows how far integration had come within her lifetime. The woman who forced the WPCP into integration lived in a nursing home where race was no longer a consideration for where people were placed. And the woman who had worked her entire life recording the daily lives of Pittsburgh’s black community could not just relax and enjoy her retirement. She was thinking up stories to write about her new community.
Johnson’s writing is chatty, with a voice that seems more like a person is talking to a best friend than reading a list of distant happens to some out-of-reach strata of society.[9] Her columns were almost always composed of quick vignettes about people and happenings around town, with each comment on an event focusing on a person. She detailed deaths, marriages, visits, college departures and arrivals home by collegiate, and town visitors of any consequence. She would also take public events and relate them directly to the community. For example, a January 14, 1961 column commented on Jacquelyn Kennedy’s ascent to the White House and the post of “best-dressed woman for 1960” by looking to the Pittsburgh black community for the best-dressed black women, those ladies who had “quiet elegance …such that one automatically takes it for granted that they always look good, but never flashy.”[10] Her column did not always focus directly on the Pittsburgh community, though. The world was Johnson’s community. She attended the John F. Kennedy inauguration in January of 1961, and her column reported on the social swirl that surrounded the event, the upset caused by a blizzard right before Kennedy was sworn in, and detailed the many people who attended the colorful social swirl.[11] In March 1961, Johnson’s column changed from being called simply “Toki Types” to “Toki Types About Women Around the World” to indicate Johnson’s increasing shift toward discussing a wide variety of women’s issues, from fashions in Paris to the comings and goings of New York socialites, to the pride of a Chicago mother over her son’s accomplishments. Many of her columns also wrapped up with “Toki’s Sermonette,” a brief paragraph meant to uplift readers and focus their eyes on religious and moral issues in everyday life. An April 8, 1961 sermonette encouraged readers to pray every morning rather than to feel moral superiority over the deprivations of the recently passed Lenten season:
A prayer in the morning will establish a firm foundation for the day to come. A word with God when you arise, when your mind is free of ugliness, will give your day a boost and let many irritations slide off your back that otherwise would nick your heart and hurt. During Lent many went on fast days; they denied themselves small luxuries. But now that Easter has come and gone, they are back on the track. How much better to pray each day directly to God that this day be made perfect and serene…than to give up sweets, ice cream, pie and beer and probably never ask God for his blessing. Most of the things people give up as a sacrifice are not good for them anyway. So what do they gain? A sense of superior will power; a feeling of being an extra-special Christian; when all the time they’re neglecting the supreme power. There is no way to dodge the responsibility of the spirit. Pray each morning the Forward Movement Prayer, and the day will go easier.[12]
Johnson’s style made her an educator and a best friend all at once. Reading her column is like sitting down to coffee with a best girlfriend, with the conversation ranging through friends and family members we may know—or who we may not know but should—fashion, and the frustrations and struggles of everyday life. Johnson’s writing style and choice of topic exemplifies the idea that “education and religion have been central to the lives of African-American women.”[13] Where white women were often restricted from speaking on religious issues in a public forum, black women, Rodger Streitmatter argues, were often more accepted as coworkers by their male counterparts.[14] Both Johnson’s work and Garland’s quick ascent, which will be discussed later, illustrate the way that black women were able to speak to the black community as boldly as male leaders, but they were leaders who had a strong feminine voice, as well.
In addition to her work as the nationally known features editor of the Pittsburgh Courier’s Lifestyles page, Johnson was also a leader in the black community across the United States. She was one of the founding members of the Pittsburgh chapter of The Girl Friends, Inc., which is one of the oldest women’s civic organizations for African-America women in the United States, according to its Web site. [15] The organization itself was founded in 1927 during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1947, the Philadelphia chapter sponsored the Pittsburgh Chapter, and Johnson was one of the 17 charter members. Four years later, Johnson’s Courier co-worker and friend, Hazel Garland joined the prestigious civic organization as well.[16]
Notes: 1. Rodger Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice: African-American women journalists who changed history, Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994, 3.
2. Georgianne Williams, 5 Aug. 2010, interview by Candi S. Carter Olson, digital voice recording, personal interview, not catalogued.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Meeting minutes, 20 June 1970, Women’s Press Club-Minutes, Box 3, Folder 4.
7. Woodene Merriman, 27 Aug. 2010, interview by Candi S. Carter Olson, digital voice recording, personal interview, not catalogued.
8. Toki Schalk Johnson to “Esther dear,” 8 May 1973, Women’s Press Club-Minutes,September 11, 1969-1976, MSS 131, Box 3, Folder 4, WPCRP.
9. I chose to focus on an archival search of 1961 to get a feel for Johnson’s voice as a writer because it was the year she was finally admitted to the WPCP, although she never mentioned the event in her column, “Toki Types.” I’ve chosen to focus on her column “Toki Types” because she had the most discretion about topics compared to any other articles she wrote.
10. Toki Schalk Johnson, “Toki Types,” Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1965), 14 January 1961, p. B2, retrieved 10 March 2012, from Proquest Historical Newspapers Pittsburgh Courier: 1911-2002.
11. Toki Schalk Johnson, “Toki Types,” Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1965), 28 January 1961, p. 16, retrieved 10 March 2012, from Proquest Historical Newspapers Pittsburgh Courier: 1911-2002.
12. Toki Schalk Johnson, “Toki Types About Women Around the World,” Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1965), 8 April 1961, p. 44, retrieved 10 March 2012, from Proquest Historical Newspapers Pittsburgh Courier: 1911-2002.
13. Streitmatter, Raising Their Voices, 10.
14. Ibid.
15. “The History of The Girl Friends, Inc.,” The Girl Friends, Inc. 2007, retrieved 4 March 2012, http://thegfinc.org/history.html.
16. “The Pittsburgh Chapter,” The Girl Friends, Inc., 2007, retrieved 4 March 2012, http://thegfinc.org/pittsburgh_pg.html.
The black women journalists of the WPCP experienced this same difficult multivocality as they built their own work to express the desires of black women, the black people, and their own community’s needs and desires as well. As journalists, black women were not struggling with the impartial voice that marked most journalist rhetoric at the time. They were fully immersed in the struggle for equality, and their work reflects this struggle:
Many reporters reject the concept of the journalist as an agent of change. A reporter simply chronicles the events of the day, such purists argue, and should not shape those events. …Such an argument would not, however, come from a participant in the African-American press. This history of the black press, grounded in a tradition of advocacy, is closely intertwined with the history of black America. Individuals working in the African-American press have been some of the most important leaders of African-American History.[1]
All of the women’s press club’s black women worked for the nation’s largest circulating black newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier (which changed its name to The New Pittsburgh Courier in the late 1960s). This section focuses on two women who were instrumental in the WPCP during the 1960s and 1970s: Toki Schalk Johnson, the club’s first African American member, and Hazel Garland, who was the first editor in chief of a nationally circulating black publication. The group also welcomed Willa Mae Rice, who was editor of the Courier’s religion section and vice president of the WPCP. Rice was well-respected as a religious voice within the Black community, and in the 80s, she was honored nationally for her work within Pittsburgh’s black religious community. This chapter cannot consider her as in depth as her life deserves purely because there is a dearth of information on her. However, the respect she drew from the community, which is evident from her 1980’s obituary and the few articles gathered in the WPCP scrapbooks that detail her religious honors in the 1980s indicate that she is a figure who deserves further consideration in another work. Because Johnson died in 1977, Rice died in 1981, and Hazel Garland died in 1988, the information I have gathered on the women is from their own writings and the reflections of others. However, by all accounts, Johnson, who had the courage to keep her application alive for 14 years, Garland, who blazed trails for black women journalists, and Rice, who served as a religion writer for the Pittsburgh Courier in the 1960s and 1970s, were women with spines of steel who wouldn’t let discrimination—either racial or gender—keep them from going where they wished to go.
As noted earlier, Johnson was blackballed from joining the club for years until finally, in 1961, she was admitted with very little to-do noted in the club’s official records. Georgianne Williams, who was WPCP president from 1979-1981, did not join the club until 1965, but she remembered that even then, having black women in the club was controversial among the white membership. She said of the white women, “And you know, it was some of the nicest people in the club who were against it [admitting black women]. It kind of shocked me.”[2] Williams, who tutored the Duquesne basketball team while she was an undergraduate there, said her frame of reference was very different than many of the other WPCP members because she had been friends with many black people at Duquesne:
But you have to remember that most of these women [WPCP members] were not exposed to black families. They went to high schools that were all white. They went to colleges that were predominantly white. Their social experiences were without any blacks. They didn’t know any educated blacks. So they thought that even if the person was remarkably talented, she wouldn’t fit in. And they had the fear, that if we accept black women in the club, we want to have our anniversary dinners at the Duquesne Club. What kind of stir would that cause? That’s the reality of the times.[3]
The WPCP accepted black women before the Duquesne Club had admitted its first black member (an event that happened in the early 1970s), so every year for its banquet, the Johnson, Garland, and Rice were a visible part of not only challenging the white elitism of the WPCP, but also of the Duquesne Club, which not only did not accept black people, but also relegated women to a separate dining room. To reach the women’s dining room, the women had to enter by a separate entrance at the back of the club. Williams remembered Johnson fondly and said, “She looked like she walked out of Vogue…she was always gorgeously dressed. She was a beautiful woman, very, very talented.”[4] Even with all of her talent and the stylish beauty which is displayed in all of the pictures of her from the time, Johnson was aware that full acceptance would still be a long time coming for her and other black women, Williams said. “She never said much except she said it would be a long time before black people could be in an all-white women’s organization. She …people were keenly aware. She and Hazel Garland, who also was very talented, they knew that it would be a long time before a black woman would be accepted in white culture.” [5] However, after joining the WPCP, Johnson and Garland seemed to be accepted quickly into the hierarchy of the club.
After being admitted to the WPCP, Johnson quickly rose in the ranks. In 1963, she was listed as the club’s corresponding secretary. By 1965, she had been elected to the board. In 1970, she was elected president, a position she held for the customary two years. On her inauguration, then-secretary Ann Zurosky’s notes show the club members were comfortable enough to laugh with and tease her:
Said Mrs. [Toki] Johnson: "Girls--and I say this because I have never known such a group of girls in my life. I don't know how old or how young you are but you're full of fun and talented. To become president of such a group is a great honor for me....Each one of you has added so much to my life...this is one of the greatest days of my life. I just hope I can live up to this honor."
...The meeting broke up with everyone scattering to visit among each other or tour the house which was a museum of lovely art and interesting antiques.
As Toki said when everyone was drifting away..."I'm losing my audience before I begin". (sic)
It happens all the time.[6]
Kidding aside, Johnson, along with Garland and Rice, were widely regarded by the rest of the WPCP membership as hard-working, admirable women who were people they wished to emulate in many ways. “The black women who belonged, I was sort of in awe of them. …They really accomplished more than we did. And they were nice,” Woodene “Woody” Merriman said. “They had to overcome the fact that they were black and they were women, and that’s pretty tough, I think.”[7] By 1973, Johnson’s health was deteriorating badly, and she was forced to move into a nursing home in Detroit. She was still remembered as a pillar of strength by her friends in the WPCP, though, and her own words show that even in illness, she faced adversity with good humor and an eye to a constantly improving future. A brief note addressed to “Dear Maxine,” which was then stapled to a letter from Johnson to “Esther dear” (most likely Esther Elias), says of Johnson, “She is truly brave, isn't she, and I admire her deeply.” The letter from Johnson reveals that even though Johnson was truly ill—she notes that she was 87 pounds when she was first admitted to the nursing home and had to wear leg braces at the time—she was still thinking of ways to be independent and to work:
My only excuse for not writing earlier to thank the girls for the lovely gift they sent...the Golden Apple of Healthy, I call it...and to tell you how truly marvelous you are..is that I seem to be busier than ever, in a curtailed sort of way. A nursing home is no resort, nor a hotel...no one can come and go as they please, but it is comfortable...the food is good...and those of us who don't have TV's in our room, can go to the Day room and enjoy the TV there (I go down every night). Of course I have to do battle with the men who want to see something else always! But I walked out one night and the nurse got the boys straightened out...hommmmmmm for women's lib or sumpin...
The leg braces are cumbersome and heavy, but in spite of them, I'm going to look for an apartment and see what happens. After being my own boss all these years, the toughest thing is the regimentation...worse really than punching the time clock...I eat in my room which I share with a 90 year old doll...she's sweet and quiet, except for calling for a nurse and bedpan 24 hours a day! They mix everyone up here... all race, all varieties of characters without regard for personalities...I'm working on a story that points this up. Such characters! [8]
Johnson died in the Law-Den nursing home, from where she wrote this letter, so she never managed to achieve her goal of an apartment. Her observations about life in the nursing home reveal what she valued, though. She laughed about wresting the TV from the old men who lived in the home and called it her own part in the Women’s Liberation Movement. She highlights the mix of races and “varieties of characters” living in the home, which, in some ways shows how far integration had come within her lifetime. The woman who forced the WPCP into integration lived in a nursing home where race was no longer a consideration for where people were placed. And the woman who had worked her entire life recording the daily lives of Pittsburgh’s black community could not just relax and enjoy her retirement. She was thinking up stories to write about her new community.
Johnson’s writing is chatty, with a voice that seems more like a person is talking to a best friend than reading a list of distant happens to some out-of-reach strata of society.[9] Her columns were almost always composed of quick vignettes about people and happenings around town, with each comment on an event focusing on a person. She detailed deaths, marriages, visits, college departures and arrivals home by collegiate, and town visitors of any consequence. She would also take public events and relate them directly to the community. For example, a January 14, 1961 column commented on Jacquelyn Kennedy’s ascent to the White House and the post of “best-dressed woman for 1960” by looking to the Pittsburgh black community for the best-dressed black women, those ladies who had “quiet elegance …such that one automatically takes it for granted that they always look good, but never flashy.”[10] Her column did not always focus directly on the Pittsburgh community, though. The world was Johnson’s community. She attended the John F. Kennedy inauguration in January of 1961, and her column reported on the social swirl that surrounded the event, the upset caused by a blizzard right before Kennedy was sworn in, and detailed the many people who attended the colorful social swirl.[11] In March 1961, Johnson’s column changed from being called simply “Toki Types” to “Toki Types About Women Around the World” to indicate Johnson’s increasing shift toward discussing a wide variety of women’s issues, from fashions in Paris to the comings and goings of New York socialites, to the pride of a Chicago mother over her son’s accomplishments. Many of her columns also wrapped up with “Toki’s Sermonette,” a brief paragraph meant to uplift readers and focus their eyes on religious and moral issues in everyday life. An April 8, 1961 sermonette encouraged readers to pray every morning rather than to feel moral superiority over the deprivations of the recently passed Lenten season:
A prayer in the morning will establish a firm foundation for the day to come. A word with God when you arise, when your mind is free of ugliness, will give your day a boost and let many irritations slide off your back that otherwise would nick your heart and hurt. During Lent many went on fast days; they denied themselves small luxuries. But now that Easter has come and gone, they are back on the track. How much better to pray each day directly to God that this day be made perfect and serene…than to give up sweets, ice cream, pie and beer and probably never ask God for his blessing. Most of the things people give up as a sacrifice are not good for them anyway. So what do they gain? A sense of superior will power; a feeling of being an extra-special Christian; when all the time they’re neglecting the supreme power. There is no way to dodge the responsibility of the spirit. Pray each morning the Forward Movement Prayer, and the day will go easier.[12]
Johnson’s style made her an educator and a best friend all at once. Reading her column is like sitting down to coffee with a best girlfriend, with the conversation ranging through friends and family members we may know—or who we may not know but should—fashion, and the frustrations and struggles of everyday life. Johnson’s writing style and choice of topic exemplifies the idea that “education and religion have been central to the lives of African-American women.”[13] Where white women were often restricted from speaking on religious issues in a public forum, black women, Rodger Streitmatter argues, were often more accepted as coworkers by their male counterparts.[14] Both Johnson’s work and Garland’s quick ascent, which will be discussed later, illustrate the way that black women were able to speak to the black community as boldly as male leaders, but they were leaders who had a strong feminine voice, as well.
In addition to her work as the nationally known features editor of the Pittsburgh Courier’s Lifestyles page, Johnson was also a leader in the black community across the United States. She was one of the founding members of the Pittsburgh chapter of The Girl Friends, Inc., which is one of the oldest women’s civic organizations for African-America women in the United States, according to its Web site. [15] The organization itself was founded in 1927 during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1947, the Philadelphia chapter sponsored the Pittsburgh Chapter, and Johnson was one of the 17 charter members. Four years later, Johnson’s Courier co-worker and friend, Hazel Garland joined the prestigious civic organization as well.[16]
Notes: 1. Rodger Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice: African-American women journalists who changed history, Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994, 3.
2. Georgianne Williams, 5 Aug. 2010, interview by Candi S. Carter Olson, digital voice recording, personal interview, not catalogued.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Meeting minutes, 20 June 1970, Women’s Press Club-Minutes, Box 3, Folder 4.
7. Woodene Merriman, 27 Aug. 2010, interview by Candi S. Carter Olson, digital voice recording, personal interview, not catalogued.
8. Toki Schalk Johnson to “Esther dear,” 8 May 1973, Women’s Press Club-Minutes,September 11, 1969-1976, MSS 131, Box 3, Folder 4, WPCRP.
9. I chose to focus on an archival search of 1961 to get a feel for Johnson’s voice as a writer because it was the year she was finally admitted to the WPCP, although she never mentioned the event in her column, “Toki Types.” I’ve chosen to focus on her column “Toki Types” because she had the most discretion about topics compared to any other articles she wrote.
10. Toki Schalk Johnson, “Toki Types,” Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1965), 14 January 1961, p. B2, retrieved 10 March 2012, from Proquest Historical Newspapers Pittsburgh Courier: 1911-2002.
11. Toki Schalk Johnson, “Toki Types,” Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1965), 28 January 1961, p. 16, retrieved 10 March 2012, from Proquest Historical Newspapers Pittsburgh Courier: 1911-2002.
12. Toki Schalk Johnson, “Toki Types About Women Around the World,” Pittsburgh Courier (1955-1965), 8 April 1961, p. 44, retrieved 10 March 2012, from Proquest Historical Newspapers Pittsburgh Courier: 1911-2002.
13. Streitmatter, Raising Their Voices, 10.
14. Ibid.
15. “The History of The Girl Friends, Inc.,” The Girl Friends, Inc. 2007, retrieved 4 March 2012, http://thegfinc.org/history.html.
16. “The Pittsburgh Chapter,” The Girl Friends, Inc., 2007, retrieved 4 March 2012, http://thegfinc.org/pittsburgh_pg.html.