Wilbert Tatum

Wilbert Arnold "Bill" Tatum (23 January 1933 – 26 February 2009) was an American newspaper executive who variously served as the editor, publisher, chairman and chief executive officer of the New York Amsterdam News, a weekly newspaper that serves the African-American community of New York City.

Tatum was born in a three-room shack in Durham, North Carolina, the 10th of 13 children, in 1933. He attended Durham's segregated schools, working during the summer in tobacco fields.

He majored in sociology at Lincoln University, the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. During the Korean War, he served in the United States Marine Corps as a drill instructor in Japan from 1951 until 1954. After completing his military service, he attended Yale University as a National Urban Fellow. Tatum was later awarded a master's degree from Occidental College, where he majored in urban studies.

Tatum spent 13 years working as a mayoral appointee in the government of New York City, during the John Lindsay and Abraham Beame administrations. While director of community relations at the New York City Department of Buildings, he spent a cold winter's night in 1967 in a Queens housing project that lacked heat, to publicize the circumstances of tenants there. He proposed a $6 billion "clothing stamp" program that would provide clothing for the poor nationwide while assisting the city's struggling garment industry. Another proposal would have replaced the site of the former Madison Square Garden with an indoor amusement park.

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