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“Activities of Women’s National Organizations,” in which she kept readers up to date about women’s organizations across the country. In her column late in 1942 she issued her opinions about the role of women in the 1940s, “There is a world revolution…. Woman shall pitch in to take her proper place in the stern business of running—not the world—but the community in which she lives.”
    Venice Spragg reported on women’s issues at the national level. In her column “Women in the National Picture” she reported on happenings of the National Council of Negro Women, the National Association of Colored Women, and the National Negro Congress. She kept readers up to date about legislation in Washington that affected the lives of black women. She recommended readings from professional publications such as the
Journal of Educational Sociology.
Venice encouraged black women to take every opportunity to get more education. She wrote, “One thing seems certain, the educated woman will continue to come to the fore.”
    In her feature article “Women Power in War” in September 1942, Diana Briggs reminded readers, “It’s a man’s war no longer. Today women power is playing an increasing role in every factory and every battlefront.” Diana’s weekly column, “In aMan’s World” highlighted Chicago women who were making headlines in a “man’s world.” She profiled Esther Woods, Sarah Harris, Gwendolyn Parkman, Mildred Anderson, and Juanita Jackson in “Gals Take Over Bikes and Keep Wire Buzzin’.” The women had been hired by Western Union to deliver telegrams on the South Side of Chicago, where they would replace men who had left for the war. Wearing Western Union uniforms, the women rode through the streets on bicycles delivering messages to homes and businesses. They came from a variety of backgrounds. Juanita Jackson had been a high school student, and Mildred Anderson had worked in a sculptor studio before going to work for Western Union. Sarah Harris had tried to get a job as a telegraph operator but learned that job “was closed to Negro girls.” The women enjoyed their jobs but said one difficult part of the job was avoiding dogs who tried to chase them.
    Diana Briggs profiled “Peaches, the Cabbie,” in her column in March 1942. Lois Mae Davis—“Evanston’s only female cabbie”—started driving a cab in 1939 after checking with the chief of police to make sure there was no law on the books that outlawed black women cabbies. The chief said, “I don’t see any law against it.” By August 1940 she was in business. When she tried to get the men cabbies to allow her to receive calls at one of the cabstands, the men refused. When one agreed to her request, the other men went on strike. So Peaches had to take calls at her house. Soon the “lady cabbie” was in demand.
    Bettye Murphy Phillips of the
Afro American
was a journalist with one of the most envious assignments a journalist could get in wartime—war zone correspondent. And she was the
first
black female overseas war correspondent. Late in 1944 she rode a military transport plane for over 26 hours from New York to Scotland and then had a two-hour flight to London. Shortly after her arrival in London, she heard the air-raid sirens and headed for the nearest cellar. That was her introduction to wartime London.

    Bettye Murphy Phillips was the only black woman war correspondent sent overseas in World War II, 1945.
Courtesy of the Afro-American Newspapers Archives and Research Center
    And for a woman who made her living using the English language, the peculiarities of the British version of English were intriguing. In one of her first articles she wrote about unfamiliar terms used by the British—“torch” for flashlight, “underground” for subway, “pub” for tavern,