Xernona Clayton is a civil rights leader, pioneering broadcasting executive and the founder and CEO of the Trumpet Awards (1993), an annual awards program televised by the TBS network and distributed internationally to over 185 countries. As a journalist, Clayton wrote a column for the Atlanta Voice, and in 1967, she became the first Black person in the South to host a regularly scheduled prime-time television talk show. The program initially called Variations became The Xernona Clayton Show. Xernona had a twin sister, Xenobia. She earned her undergraduate degree with honors from Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial College (now Tennessee State University) and she pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago. In 1991 Clayton published her autobiography, I’ve Been Marching All The Time.
