Queens-born journalist Gwen Ifill honored with postage stamp

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Legendary journalist and Queens native Gwen Ifill is featured on a U.S. Postal Service stamp. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.

Legendary journalist and Queens native Gwen Ifill is featured on a U.S. Postal Service stamp. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.

By Jonathan Sperling

A legendary Queens-born journalist who made her career as a reporter and anchor for PBS is now being honored with a “Forever” stamp from the U.S. Postal Service.

A stamp honoring Jamaica native Gwen Ifill was officially issued on Thursday as part of the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. Ifill died of cancer on Nov. 14, 2016. She was 61.

Ifill paved the way as the first African-American woman to host a major U.S. political talk show in her role leading "Washington Week in Review" in 1999. She also worked as a senior correspondent for PBS NewsHour and moderated the 2004 and 2008 vice-presidential debates.

Ifill cultivated a journalism career at the local level as a politics reporter for The Baltimore Evening Sun as a local politics reporter, before being hired by The Washington Post in 1984 and covering her first presidential campaign. She joined The New York Times in 1991, becoming a White House correspondent and covering Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Ifill was also an author, writing “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” published the day of President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration.

The stamp features a headshot photo of Ifill taken in 2008 by photographer Robert Severi and a design by Postal Service Art Director Derry Noyes. It’s release was originally announced in October 2019.

“Gwen Ifill was a remarkable trailblazer who broke through gender and racial barriers,” said Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman, who served as the dedicating official. “The Postal Service is proud to celebrate Gwen’s contribution as a remarkable journalist with this beautiful commemorative Forever stamp. Gwen was truly a national treasure, and so richly deserving of today’s honor.”

A dedication ceremony for the stamp was held Thursday at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, where Ifill was a lifelong member.

The stamp honoring Ifill is the 43rd such stamp in the Black Heritage series. Other stamps featured in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series honor dancer and actor Gregory Hines, civil rights leader Dorothy Height, minister and educator Richard Allen, and architect Robert Robinson Taylor.