SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The nation honors the memory of a noted African-American broadcast journalist in Springfield, the city where she attended high school.
Springfield Postmaster Joe Conti participated in the unveiling of the stamp bearing the likeness of Gwen Ifill, a breast cancer victim at the age of 61.
The stamp was unveiled in the atrium of the Classical Condominiums in Springfield. The building that once housed Classical High School, which Gwen attended during the 1970s.
Springfield’s Black Leadership Conference sponsored Sunday afternoon’s unveiling.
President Helen Caulton-Harris, who is the city’s public health commissioner, said she remembers the family well.
“The Caulton family were members of the Bethel A.M.E. Church for a number of years. Reverend Ifill was the individual who performed my wedding, and so we have been members of the church for a very long time and very happy to celebrate black history month by honoring Gwen Ifill.”
Helen Caulton-Harris, Black Leadership Conference
The program also included scenes of many of Gwen Ifill’s finest moments as a public broadcast network anchor and reporter. Breast cancer had claimed her life in 2016.