This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 25, 2012 - Lisa Manns, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor who fought for fair coverage of African Americans in newsrooms across the nation, died of breast cancer at her home in Dallas on Saturday. She was 46.
“What characterized Lisa as a journalist was the passion she had for coverage of the African-American community,” said Rod Hicks, who worked with Ms. Manns at the Post-Dispatch and the Detroit Free Press. “She would fight for coverage of issues.”
She also fought breast cancer but could not beat the odds.
While the illness is much less prevalent among younger black women than younger white women, when it occurs, black women tend to have more aggressive forms of the cancer.
A funeral service for Ms. Manns will be at 11:30 a.m., Sat., Oct. 27 at First Baptist Church of Creve Coeur.
Early success
Ms. Manns was a senior majoring in industrial and organizational psychology at Washington University when she got the opportunity to enter the Times-Mirror minority editorial training program in New York.
She left school to accept the coveted spot and never looked back.
After completing the two-year program, she began her journalism career as a copy editor at New York Newsday, where she became part of a team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for spot reporting.
The career switch suited Ms. Manns and her activism seemed natural to those who knew her best.
“She loved to read from the time she was little,” said her mother, Clara Manns. “She would read anything she got her hands on.”
The books that leapt to her mother’s mind, however, were ones that reflected Ms. Manns’ bold outlook. Her mother recalled her reading the teen series of Nancy Drew mysteries and novels for young people by Judy Blume. Nancy was a strong young woman, and Judy Blume’s novels tackled difficult topics like race and sex.
A fighting spirit
Lisa Renee Manns was born in St. Louis on June 2, 1966, the younger of John and Clara Manns’ two children. She graduated from Ladue’s Horton Watkins High School.
After her time at Newsday, Ms. Manns went to the Detroit Free Press. She managed coverage of the 2001 mayoral race that saw the election of Detroit’s youngest mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, and directed coverage of Detroit and Wayne County’s criminal justice system, in which Kilpatrick eventually became entangled. She also led the paper’s Oakland Bureau, supervising reporters covering suburban and regional issues.
Ms. Manns continued her career at the Chicago Tribune; in 2003, she came to the Post-Dispatch as an assistant metro editor. She brought her fighting spirit with her.
“Lisa was concerned that newspapers not fall into stereotypes about blacks,” said Hicks, now an editor for the Associated Press in Philadelphia. “She would argue with her bosses about whether a story was good or not.
“She could be abrasive, but she was a very sweet person.”
Ms. Manns moved to Dallas in 2010 and worked part-time at North Lake Community College while continuing weekly chemotherapy treatments.
“My life’s journey has been beautiful,” she wrote in her self-penned obituary. “I’ve loved and I’ve been loved.”
Ms. Manns was preceded in death by her daughter, Camille Marie Manns, who died at 11 days old of a heart defect, just weeks before Ms. Manns’ cancer diagnosis.
Her survivors include her parents and brother, John (Veronica) Manns; a niece, Natalie (Donnie) Posas; and nephews, David Manns, John Manns III and Michael Manns, all of Dallas.
Visitation will be 10-11:30 a.m., Sat., Oct. 27, at First Baptist Church of Creve Coeur, 1553 Creve Coeur Mill Road. The funeral will follow immediately at 11:30 a.m. Burial will be in Forever Oak Hill Cemetery.
Condolences may be sent to William-James Mortuary, 1424 Dielman Road, St. Louis, MO 63132.