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Meet Judy Smith The First Black Woman To Lead A White House Press Briefing

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February 2, 2021

Black girl magic, no scandal!

Meet Judy Smith, the real life “Olivia Pope” and the first Black woman to lead a White House press briefing.

Recently, the Biden-Harris team unveiled the most diverse administration in history, featuring an all-woman White House communications staff, several of them being women of color. While it is a historical moment for sure, this won’t be the first time a Black woman has headed up the White House press room. According to The Yucatan Times, in 1991, Judy Smith made history as the first Black woman to lead a press briefing, serving as deputy press secretary for former President George H.W. Bush.

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Smith segued her time in The White House into a successful career as a crisis management expert. Her work as CEO of Smith & Company forged a trail for other Black women in the White House and in the communications sector, even inspiring a hit television show, Scandal, with actress Kerry Washington portraying Smith as crisis manager “Olivia Pope.” 

White House briefings were not televised heavily until the mid-90s, leading many people to not know who Smith was. Also, Bush didn’t particularly spend a lot of time on his media relations and his White House staff weren’t very visible. Nonetheless, Smith’s legacy lives on and has now made room for a communications staff full of women of color, something the trailblazer said she would’ve never guessed. 

“I didn’t think about it at the time…What I thought about at the time was that going to work in the White House was…just such an incredible opportunity…It was a dream come true. I didn’t understand the significance of what that was, getting up briefing at that moment, seeing a Black woman behind the podium, speaking on behalf of the president to the American public,” Smith told reporters.

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Thank you for all the work you’ve done Ms. Smith! Because of you, we can.

Photo Courtesy of The New York Times

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