Frank Bolden: The Man Behind the Words

2006

27min

From the streets of the Hill district in Pittsburgh to the Burma Road, Frank Bolden has seen it all. Bolden is one of the first two accredited black WWII war correspondents. His interviews during the war include Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and General and Madam Chiang Kai-Shek. For twenty-five years he worked as a reporter, columnist, and editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, which remains the most influential and widely distributed minority newspaper in America. Bolden covered the Negro Leagues, especially, the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays where he spent time with baseball greats Satchel Page and Josh Gibson. He also reported on the jazz scene in Pittsburgh, interviewing jazz legends Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billy Eckstine, Errol Garner, Mary Lou Williams, Lena Horne, and Maxine Sullivan. Through interviews, pictures, and footage, this 27-minute documentary provides a unique glimpse of American History.