Bradley Was a Symbol of Sunday Nights

“I’m Ed Bradley.  I’m Morley Safer.  I’m Lesley Stahl with another edition of Sixty Minutes. ”

If anything in my life symbolizes Sunday nights, those words surely do.  We heard this week about the passing of Ed Bradley, the lone black man among the legendary 60 Minutes crew, the guy with the earring, who was slightly  more radical than his colleagues.

Cindy found some quotes about Bradley, spoken a few years ago by producer Don Hewitt, who was on Larry King.  

“As for the earring in Ed Bradley’s left earlobe — an uncommon personal statement for such a high-profile broadcast journalist — Hewitt says it was just part of Bradley’s personality.  “That was the rugged individualist side of him,” he says. “I think it was sort of a trademark.”

In a speech Hewitt gave to a racially mixed crowd, introducing Ed Bradley for a journalism award, the producer toyed with the crowd’s sensitivities about Bradley’s race.

“I said to the crowd: ‘I hired Ed Bradley because he’s a member of a minority,'” Hewitt says. And after a pause, hearing some in the crowd gasp in surprise, Hewitt went on: “He’s a great gentleman and a great reporter. And if that ain’t a minority, I don’t know one.”