Spoiler : Robinson, Max (birth name was Maxie Cleveland Robinson, Jr.) Born in Richmond, Virginia 5/1/1939; died 12/20/1988 from complications of AIDS at the Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. At age twenty he he became a newsman at a local Portsmouth, Virginia television station. He read news with his face covered by the station's logo, one night he had the slide removed so viewers and relatives could see what he looked like, and they fired him the next day. In 1969 he moved to Washington, D.C. where he became WTOP-TV Channel 9's first African American news anchor. He was teamed with Gordon Peterson for WTOP's 6:00 pm and 11:00 pm newscasts. During his three years at WTOP, he won six journalism awards for covering events such as the 1968 riots following the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam antiwar movement, and national elections. During that time he won two regional Emmy Awards for a documentary on black life in Anacostia titled, "The Other Washington."

Spoiler : When Roone Arledge was looking to revamp ABC News, he remembered Max Robinson and hired him to be a part of the new ABC World News Tonight format that featured three anchors. Max Robinson (from New York), Peter Jennings (from London, England) and Frank Reynolds (from Washington, D.C.) anchored the ABC World Tonight (1978-1983). He left ABC in 1984, was the first black anchor at WMAQ-Chicago (1984-1985).