Funeral arrangements pending for Chicago journalist Nate Clay

JOURNALIST NATE CLAY is pictured on the far right. He attended Mayor Washington’s birthday celebration at the DuSable Museum. Clay, whose journalism career spanned more than 50 years, died on Thursday, October 12, at the age of 80, in his South Side home. He was a reporter with the Chicago Citizen, the Chicago Defender and the Chicago Metro News newspapers before acquiring and renaming that paper. Clay was also host for a Niagara Falls radio station and a reporter for the Niagara Falls Gazette newspaper before returning to Chicago. He received his bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University and earned a master’s degree in journalism from New York’s Columbia University. 

Funeral arrangements are pending for 80-year-old Nathaniel Clay, a long time Black print and broadcast journalist. Clay died on Thursday, October 12, of cardio organic disease at his apartment in the 400 block of East 41st Street, his sister Marcella Clay Johnson confirmed.

In an interview with the Chicago Crusader, Johnson said the police called her early Thursday to let her know her brother was deceased. The police found Clay on his couch.

“The police called me early Thursday morning and told me they found Nathaniel dead, sitting up on his couch,” Johnson said.

“Nathaniel had been in the Jesse Brown Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He was discharged on Monday [October 9] after dialysis and on Wednesday, he went back to the hospital for dialysis again. He got home around 7 p.m.,” Johnson said. “We talked, and that was the last time I talked to him.”

Johnson said she tried to talk her brother into staying longer in the hospital, especially since his doctor had recommended that; she said Clay wanted to go home instead.

Clay is the father of Imamu Kenyatta Clay.  He later married, but Johnson said that marriage was short lived and the couple had no children. His wife has since passed.

Johnson, and Clay’s longtime friends Dr. Virginia Moore and activist JJ, spoke highly of Clay who worked on the mayoral campaign of then-Congressman Harold Washington in 1982.

And like Washington, Clay also graduated from Roosevelt University, majoring in political science while acting as editor of the school’s Black newspaper. “That is when he fell in love with journalism,” said Johnson.

Born on December 23, 1942, in Saxton, Missouri, to a family of three, his sister said he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1948 to escape a race riot in Missouri. At that time, a white mob attacked the jail in Sikeston, Missouri, and took Cleo Wright, a Black prisoner who was accused of attempting to rape a white woman. The mob burned his body.

Johnson said Clay came to Chicago in 1959 and attended John Marshall High School but didn’t finish. “Nathaniel went to the Navy and completed his high school education there,” said Johnson. “He went to Roosevelt University where he majored in political science.”

Moore, a close friend of Clay’s for 54 years said, “One day Nate was on the bus, and he was reading the newspaper and saw an ad from Roosevelt University welcoming veterans to enroll in the school.

“Nate said, ‘That’s what I’m going to do.’” Moore said Clay graduated from Roosevelt University in 1973.

Johnson said Clay won a Michele Clark Scholarship in New York and earned a master’s degree in communications from Columbia University. Clay worked for the Niagara Falls Gazette newspaper, and became a radio talk show host in Niagara Falls, New York, before returning to Chicago.

“Nate still had so much more to give to the world and the community,” said Moore. “He was always trying to be a humanitarian to people in countries that needed help, especially those needing food. Nate would hold a fundraiser to help the Ethiopians,” Moore said.

She was referring to the 1983-1985 famine that left 1.2 million dead and 200,000 children orphaned. It was the worst famine to hit Ethiopia in a century. JJ said Clay traveled a great deal with Reverend Jesse Jackson when he was on staff with the civil rights icon.

Johnson said Clay “was always giving. He lived a well-lived life, traveling around the world. He’s been to five continents. He was a prolific writer and a speaker. He worked for 18 years as a talk show host on WLS radio.”

Johnson said her brother worked for the Chicago Citizen and the Chicago Defender newspapers before reporting for the Chicago Metro News, then owned by publisher Charles B. Armstrong, Sr., a Black Republican, located in the Prairie Place Professional building, located at 2600 S. Michigan Ave.

She recalled that Clay’s office was across from Armstrong’s when on March 1, 1985, the publisher was fatally shot by his daughter’s former boyfriend. “Nathaniel ducked down behind the desk to avoid being shot,” Johnson recalled. The newspaper shut down in May of 1991, and Clay acquired ownership, renaming it the New Metro News.

The last time Johnson spoke with her brother was on Wednesday, October 11. “He asked me to bring him some Popeyes Chicken. He wanted the red beans and rice, green beans and three chicken wings.”

Mourning the loss of his friend, JJ told the Chicago Crusader, “I have known Nate since the Harold Washington days. He worked for Reverend Jackson, and Nate was a lecturer and a historian. He would travel to many countries and come back and hold classes teaching people about those trips, including at my home. Nate was very political, very astute.”

As of print press time, funeral arrangements are pending.

Clay is survived by a son, Imamu Kenyatta Clay, a brother, Issac Clay, and his sister, Marcella Clay Johnson.