PREFACEEthel Payne likes to say that she had a box seat on history. But that's just the half of it -- she was onstage too. Fearless, and smart as a whip, Ms. Payne made her way from segregated Chicago to post-war Japan, then turned herself into a journalist. She covered Eisenhower's White House and Mandela's South Africa. She made headlines ("Negro Woman Reporter Angers Ike"). She reported on history-making events, like the first post-colonial conference...