LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Monica Kaufman Pearson stands outside her alma mater, Presentation Academy, in downtown Louisville.
She tugs at a diamond wrapped around her neck, a piece of her mother’s engagement ring, while looking at the school’s two large walnut doors with stained glass.
“After my parents divorced, she would take this diamond, pawn it every year, to pay my tuition here,” she said, tearing up at the memory.
Earlier this year, Pearson, a former WHAS11 News anchor, made a large donation to preserve the historic doors. They’re tied to a long-standing school tradition; one she holds dear to her heart.
WATCH BELOW: Full interview with Monica Kaufman Pearson
The doors were built by architect DX Murphy as part of the original building’s construction in 1893.
Students first walk through the doors when they start their journey at Presentation Academy. They don’t walk through those doors again until the day they graduate. For Pearson, that day came in 1965.
And although she lives in Atlanta now, Pearson’s always keeping up with what’s happening in Louisville.
In 2020, she watched from afar the social unrest and protests following the death of Breonna Taylor.
“It scared me to death that something would happen with these doors,” she said. “People were just breaking things to be breaking them and I just was worried that it would happen here.”
Pearson looked for ways to save the doors and the stained-glass windows, not only from potential damage, but years of deterioration. She eventually funded the project herself.
It was a heartfelt gift in honor of her mother, Hattie Wallace Jones Edmonson.
“Without her I wouldn’t have been able to get to Presentation,” she said. “I just wish she was here to see it because she gave so much for me to have this education. So, this is the least I could do.”
As she toured Presentation months later with WHAS11’s Doug Proffitt, she found more repair projects at her alma mater: doors that need re-staining, a bell that doesn’t work.
“That’s gonna bug me! It really will,” she said. “Oh, we’ve got to fix this!”
Lessons for a lifetime
When Pearson was at Presentation Academy, she was one of the only two Black girls in her class. Flipping through old yearbooks, she points herself out on several pages.
“Maybe it’s because of our Catholic upbringing, I didn’t run into any of the negativism and the nastiness that was associated with integration in other places at that time,” she said. “[The Academy] was very accepting.”
Pearson grew up in Louisville’s Smoketown neighborhood, on Jackson and Lampton Street, and would walk to school.
“When I was here, no one ever told me what I couldn’t do, it was always what I could do,” she said.
Even now, she’s still grateful for the lessons learned at Presentation, saying the teachers and nuns always pushed students to be their best selves, never once doubting their potential.
“I remember Ms. Dunlevy, who was the gym instructor, who was just as— ‘Get in there and get this done! C’mon!’” Pearson recalled. “She believed in us, not being sweet little ladies all the time, but knowing when to be aggressive and knowing when to be that ‘lady-like’ person.”
She also learned the importance of community involvement which she said helped her transition to Atlanta. Pearson got involved with a church and the local YMCA after her move.
Trailblazing anchor
Throughout her career on television, Pearson has forged her own path. Oftentimes she was the first Black woman to be in her position.
In 1973, Pearson became the first Black woman to anchor the news in Louisville at WHAS11. When she moved to Atlanta, she was again the first Black woman to anchor at a news station.
“I can remember when I went on the air in Atlanta, Black people said I ‘didn’t look Black enough,’” she said. “Then white people who didn’t want me on the air either.”
But because she was the first, she said she didn’t want anyone else to take her place—another lesson from Ms. Dunlevy.
“You don’t have to take a back seat to anybody,” Pearson said. “You have to learn to stand your ground.”
She said she never thought about working in news, in fact, because of her time at Presentation, she planned on becoming a teacher.
Before that could happen though, Pearson worked at Louisville’s first Black-owned radio station, WLOU, doing voiceover work.
She also worked at Liberty National on Broadway right across from the Courier Journal building.
“I helped reporters so much, that one day, someone said ‘why don’t you come over and help us at the newspaper?’” she recalled.
So, she did and became a newsroom clerk for the Louisville Times working on obituaries.
Pearson later went to modeling school, taking on a part-time job at Byck’s Department Store downtown.
The wife of the WHAS11 news director at the time came to Byck’s one day and asked her what she did when she wasn’t at the store. At that point, she was doing public relations for Brown-Forman.
When Brown-Forman went on strike, she told both sides of the story, but it didn’t go over well with her employer.
“Mr. Brown called me in and said there’s only one side, the company side, and I knew then it was time to go back to something else,” Pearson said. And that’s how she wound up at WHAS11.
She was initially hired as a reporter but was quickly put on the air as an anchor.
Never leaving home
Pearson wouldn’t stay in Louisville long after working at WHAS11. She said the station offered her more money to stay, but a job in Atlanta offered a better schedule.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” she said. “As I said, a lot of people were not happy they brought this Black woman in from Kentucky.”
She said three people were being considered for the job, one whom was Oprah Winfrey.
“And I got it, you beat out Oprah, I often say,” Pearson said.
Even though she’s lived in Atanta longer than Louisville, the Ville is still home.
Pearson said she comes back to Louisville often for three reasons: Smoketown, Presentation Academy and the University of Louisville.
“This is my home, my roots are here,” she said, adding that she’s always looking to give back to her home. A generous spirit that was instilled in her by her mother.
“My mother always said you have talents that are a gift, what are you supposed to do with gifts? You give them away,” she said. “I don’t want to go to my grave empty.”
Pearson imagines her mother looking over her now on the steps of Presentation. She’d be in tears, singing her favorite song, The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow, Pearson said.
“She would look at those doors and look at me and say it was worth it,” she said. “My mom sacrificed a lot for me as a single parent. When I got my first job, I said no more pawning this necklace. It was my joy to buy her a house and my joy to see her with the life she deserved, so momma’s smiling.”
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