Carmen Fields

Fields grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was raised by her parents, Bernice Copeland Fields and musician Ernie Fields.^[1]

Fields majored in journalism at Lincoln University, Missouri.^[2] Fields also studied at Boston University's School of Communication and graduated with a master's degree in broadcast journalism in 1973.^[1] Fields' first journalism job was at the Boston Globe. Fields went on to work as a television reporter and anchor. Fields was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe that reported on school desegregation in Boston.^[3] Fields' interview with Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, in 1980 was nominated for a regional Emmy.^[1]

She was also an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University.^[4] In 2023, Fields published Going Back to T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band, a book based on her father's travels with his band during the Jim Crow.^[5][6][7] She is married to author, Lorenz Finison.^[8]

In 2023, she was recognized as one of "Boston’s most admired, beloved, and successful Black Women leaders" by the Black Women Lead project.^[9][10][11] Fields was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize along with the Globe team for (COM’73) for its coverage of the bitter racial divide over court-ordered busing to desegregate the city’s schools in 1975.^[3]