Shirley James, the publisher of one of America’s oldest African-American owned newspapers, will receive an honorary degree this week from Spelman College, her alma mater, in recognition for her lifetime of achievement both as an educator and community leader in Savannah.
James says the award will be the highlight of her more than 50-year career as a longtime administrator at Savannah State University and as a civil rights and voting rights advocate in the city where she has raised her family, all while she and her husband revived the Savannah Tribune.
James, who grew up in Georgetown, South Carolina, was brought up in a family that prized education and whose mother and aunts had been taught by Spelman women. To be recognized as part of the sisterhood that they considered the most influential and respected role models is something she never expected.
“I don’t know how I got nominated, or who nominated me,” James said in an interview with The Current GA last week. “What I do know is that the honor is beyond all my expectations.”
James and husband Robert moved to Savannah in 1971, after she had graduated in 1968 from Spelman and he graduated from Morris Brown College Atlanta and they both graduated from Harvard University.
Coming to the Hostess City without any family ties, the young couple quickly got involved in community issues.
James said that Spelman reinforced the values that she had been taught growing up, and the values she brought with her to Savannah: community service, excellence in educational pursuit and respect for other’s opinions.
Attending an HBCU gave her the self confidence to contribute to her adopted home, to give her opinion across tables of strangers and the strength to break into a town that was much different in the 1970s when she arrived than it is today.
In James’ case, that meant going to work at Savannah State and helping integrate what was known then as the YWCO into the national YWCA organization. Those efforts brought her lifelong friends and allies, including Dr. Abigail Jordan, Moszelle Clemons. Wilhelmina Dean and Zelda Tenenbaum, she said.
“Spelman gave us the confidence that we could do anything. Coming here, [I brought] some of that with me,” she said. “You feel that you can walk into anyone’s room and be comfortable there no matter the size of the room. When you had opportunities to speak, you could speak, whether your voice was heard or not.”
After retirement from Savannah State University in 2002, James was appointed the director/coordinator of the Savannah Black Heritage Festival where, during her 20-year tenure (2002-22), she transformed a free weekend city event into a month-long program offering performances, lectures and visual arts exhibitions by nationally acclaimed performing and visual artists, and increasing attendance from 7,000 to a peak of 30,000.
Throughout all this community work, James also has led the Savannah Tribune, the weekly paper originally founded in 1875 with a mission to defend “the rights of the colored people, and their elevation to the highest plane of citizenship.”
Under James’ watch, the paper, which is delivered to historic Black churches in the Savannah area every week, has become a moral voice for voting rights and civic education, as well as a place for readers to learn about social and economic issues affecting their lives.
James was named the 2025 Newspaper Publisher of the Year by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, and is the liaison/coordinator for the St. Philip AME Church and Black Voters Matter Fund partnership.
Spelman has remained a foundational guide in James’ life. She has never missed a college reunion since her graduation, she said.
From her home in Sylvan Terrace in midtown Savannah, James reflected on what it will mean to be the person standing on a dais during the 145th Founders Day celebration in front of her three children and six grandchildren.
“The way we are going now as a country, we need more leaders, more guides,” she said. Spelman’s role in strengthening social and civic values in such an era can’t be underestimated.
“The sisterhood that we value, that we embraced while we were at Spelman is what I wish every young person could experience,” she said. “Those lifelong friendships and support with Spelmanites is something I have and rely on wherever I go.”
