There was a short but nice tribute to Mrs. Campbell in today’s Post editorials:
Elizabeth P. Campbell
Sunday, January 18, 2004; Page B06
BEFORE WETA first went airborne in the Washington area, public television — better known then as “educational TV” — had been a noble if sometimes bumpy experiment, sending blackboard chalk talks into classrooms. Most programs were in glorious black and white, recorded on snowy kinescopes that flickered on small-screen sets equipped with newfangled circular UHF antennas. Elizabeth Pfohl Campbell, who died this month after a remarkably productive 101 years, was among the first to understand the great potential of publicly supported television as a positive, powerful alternative to commercial TV fare.
Though Mrs. Campbell was best remembered as WETA’s founder and a pioneer in public television, she also was a courageous leader of countless early efforts to break down barriers of racial discrimination. WETA was a natural extension of her passion for teaching and her indignation at the injustice of segregation in the schools. Mrs. Campbell carried on her fight for desegregation as a three-term chairwoman of the Arlington School Board — at the time the only elected board in Virginia, where segregationist lawmakers in Richmond closed schools rather than desegregate them.
Mrs. Campbell saw television as a way to expose children to fine arts, music and other experiences not available in their classrooms. She encouraged creative television programming for adults as well, winning national recognition for the station and a constant flow of awards. “During all those years,” wrote Post reporter Patty Brennan in 1999, “the little woman with the upswept silver ‘do has never drawn a paycheck, but has maintained her belief in the importance of education, the power of television and the potential of women.” Elizabeth Campbell was a grande dame in the finest sense.
