By Glenn Frizell
BLACK HISTORY, NOTABLE BROADCASTERS, J.C. Hayward is an television journalist and anchorwoman and was the first anchorwoman in the District. Born Jacqueline Hayward, she grew up an only child in East Orange, N.J., just outside of Newark, where she learned to play the classical piano. She enrolled to North Carolina Central University, then transferred to the District’s Howard University and attended for two years. In 1985, Howard gave her an honorary doctorate. Hayward became interested in the news after attending a summer fellowship at Columbia University in New York. After a short stint at a CBS affiliate in Atlanta, she came to Washington’s WUSA in the early 1970s. In 1972, when she joined the WTOP-TV9 broadcast team, she was the first female in the Washington market to anchor a newscast. During her 40 plus year career at WTOP (now WUSA), Hayward, held the national record for a woman anchoring the same evening newscast at the same station and was well-known and respected in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for her supreme devotion and commitment to community and public service, charitable giving, and education. A preeminent newscaster, she is especially noted for her award-winning documentaries, including “Somalia: The Silent Tragedy.” Hayward has earned many honors and awards from many organizations that include the Capital Press Club and National Association of Black Journalists. In 2001, Howard University honored Hayward with a Charter Day Alumni Award. In turn, Hayward donated a $1 million life insurance policy to Howard and pledged her body to the medical school for research, according to news reports. Her lawyer said she bequeathed $250,000 to Arena Stage earlier this year and has donated more than $100,000 to local nonprofit organizations. In January of 2015, she retired after more than 43 years from her anchorwoman job at WUSA.
