Circa 1940s: This photograph of Pittsburgh journalist Frank E. Bolden shows him during the prime of his career.
He traveled the world as a World War II correspondent. In 1944, he wrote about brave black soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division in Italy, debunking the claim that African-Americans would flee from combat.
Next, it was on to the China-Burma-India theater to document the black engineering troops who built an airstrip and gave their lives in the construction of the Burma Road.
Later, Mr. Bolden interviewed Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Madam and General Chiang Kai-shek, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
After the war, Mr. Bolden returned to The Pittsburgh Courier, turning down job offers from The New York Times and Life Magazine. The Pittsburgh Courier, he said, had made him.
In the early 1960s, when The Pittsburgh Courier ran into financial trouble, Mr. Bolden worked for The New York Times and later for NBC-TV’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report.”
At the Republican National Convention of 1964, Mr. Bolden tipped a black bell hop to lead him to Barry Goldwater’s hotel room. He interviewed Mr. Goldwater while sitting on the edge of a bathtub.
A gifted reporter and raconteur, Mr. Bolden died at age 90 in 2003.
