Elizabeth Murphy Moss

Elizabeth B. Murphy Moss (1917–1998) was an American journalist, the first black woman to be certified as an overseas war correspondent in World War II.[1]

Life

Elizabeth Murphy came from a Baltimore newspaper family: her grandfather John H. Murphy, Sr. had founded the Baltimore Afro-American, and her father Carl J. Murphy edited the newspaper from 1922 until his death in 1967. Her mother Vashti Turley Murphy was a co-founder of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.[2]

The eldest of five daughters, Elizabeth studied at Frederick Douglass High School and the University of Minnesota, where she gained a bachelor's degree in journalism. She spent most of her life working for the Afro-American.[2] By 1942 she was the city editor for the newspaper's Baltimore section. Married to Afro photographer Frank Phillips, she became the first black woman to be accredited as a war correspondent in 1944. Though she travelled to London, intending to travel further into Europe, she was unfortunately taken ill and forced to return home. In 1949 she began a column 'If You Ask Me' which continued in the newspaper for the next 48 years.[3]

She died 7 April 1998 at the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.[2]

References
  1. Deborah Chambers; Linda Steiner; Carole Fleming (2004). Women and Journalism. Psychology Press. p. 204. ISBN 978-0-415-27444-9.
  2. Dennis O'Brien, Elizabeth Murphy Moss, 81, Afro reporter and editor, April 8, 1998.
  3. Hayward Farrar (1998). The Baltimore Afro-American, 1892-1950. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-313-30517-7.
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