On Thursday, March 30, the mood was celebratory and the room crowded for the 38th annual Prince George’s County Women’s History Month
Luncheon, whose theme was Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories. After a hiatus during the pandemic, and a smaller version of the luncheon last year, this year saw a return to an enthusiastic full celebration, tickets for which sold out in two weeks.
County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who was introduced as a working mother running the second largest county in Maryland, danced up on stage to a room full of applause. Her introductory remarks were only 15 minutes and to the surprise of editor Mary Lou Williamson, who was in the audience, the county executive spent the bulk of her time telling the story of the Greenbelt News Review.
Alsobrooks described the small paper, founded shortly after the town was chartered, that broadcast town notices and births, mourned residents through obituaries, featured occasional food recipes and printed local resident spotlights – “the illustrations that add life to a town’s story,” said Alsobrooks. “But what was most noteworthy about this small, volunteer-assisted publication,” said Alsobrooks, “is that from the earliest days of the paper, the work was carried by women. Twelve of the 18 staff members were women. Women like Dorothy Sucher and Mary Lou Williamson, who shared editing duties as both, and a few other staffers also, dealt with the full-time call of motherhood.”
Alsobrooks went on to share how covering city council led the paper to become embroiled in a lawsuit with a wealthy developer. “The small paper couldn’t survive a successful lawsuit,” shared Alsobrooks, “But they decided to fight, because to them it was a clear case of freedom of the press – and the importance of telling important stories.”
As many News Review readers know, the paper lost the case in circuit court, again in its appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland, but, as the News Review continued to fight, the case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Finally, the highest court in the land returned a unanimous decision siding with the small neighborhood newspaper in a case that protected the First Amendment right of a free press for reporters nationwide,” Alsobrooks told guests at the luncheon, who included Maryland’s First Lady Dawn Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and other dignitaries.
“Today, the Greenbelt News Review still operates as the longest running cooperative weekly newspaper in the United States. It still celebrates births, mourns deaths, highlights interesting residents and reports the news,” said Alsobrooks. “Women still do much of the important work. With the exception of two, since 1977 all of the board presidents have been women. And the editor of the paper has been a woman, 94 percent of the time the paper has been in operation. That includes Mary Lou Williamson…. When I learned of her story, and the work she has done in the county, I was absolutely blown away. This woman has truly laid a strong foundation for other trailblazing women to follow.”
Calling Williamson a “super bad woman,” Alsobrooks welcomed our longtime editor to the stage, where she received standing applause as well as an Honorary Legacy Builder award from the county’s executive. “I know we are going to honor and recognize other outstanding women later in the program, but I wanted to take a moment now to recognize Ms. Williamson, because her story and work is so central to this year’s theme,” she said.
