Daughters of Greatness: Betty Winston Baye

A native New Yorker, Betty Winston Baye ́ is an independent journalist, motivational speaker, and author of three books, The Africans, Blackbird, and The Book of David: My East Harlem Love Story. She earned a master’s degree at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College, City University of New York. She moved to Louisville in 1984 to join The Courier-Journal, where for 27 years her positions included reporter, assistant metro editor, editorial writer, and columnist.

Betty’s syndicated commentaries about race, politics, social justice, African American history, and the Black family drew a loyal audience, awards and TV and radio appearances. She was the lone African American on The CJ’s editorial board from 1991 to 2011. Betty was one of 12 American journalists awarded a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1990-91. Betty is a past President of the Louisville Association of Black Communicators, and a past Vice President of the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2013 NABJ inducted her into its Hall of Fame. In 2016, Simmons College of Kentucky awarded Betty an honorary doctorate degree for her advocacy journalism.

She produced and hosted The Betty Bayé Show on WYCS-TV in Louisville for eight years, and was a member of The Trotter Group, a national collective of Black opinion writers, for more than a decade. She conceived and co-hosts “Good Grief, Good Gossip, Good God,” a talk show on St. Stephen Baptist Church’s SSCLive TV. Betty is a member of the Louisville Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Inc., Chums of Louisville Inc., and the Zora Neale Hurston book club which she founded in 1999.