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U.S. Postal Service Issues Stamp Honoring Onetime Springfield Resident Gwen Ifill

The new Gwen Ifill stamps from the United States Postal Service.
Alden Bourne

The United States Postal Service has released a stamp featuring the late journalist Gwen Ifill. The one-time Springfield, Massachusetts, resident is being celebrated locally, as well. 

As the host of Washington Week on PBS, Ifill was the first woman and the first African American to moderate a major TV news analysis show. She died in 2016.

Ifill is on the latest Black Heritage series stamp, which was officially unveiled in Washington last month.

Rosemary Woods, who is executive director of Art for the Soul, a gallery in Springfield, helped organize a local ceremony Sunday, on the site of Ifill's former high school.

Woods said she met Ifill at a woman's conference about ten years ago.

"She was a trailblazer in communication, both as a black woman, and she was a very humble, beautiful woman," Woods said in an interview Friday.

The Black Heritage stamp series has previously honored major African American figures like Harriet Tubman, Lena Horne, Gregory Hines and Martin Luther King Jr. 

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Before joining New England Public Media, Alden was a producer for the CBS NEWS program 60 Minutes. In that role, he covered topics ranging from art, music and medicine to business, education and politics.