Black, Sam

Pioneering and prolific summarize the contributions of Britain's Sam Black, one of the world's first global practitioners, as well as one of the founders of modern-day United Kingdom public relations practice. Born to Russian immigrant parents in Britain in 1915, Black's career spanned most of the 20th century; the name “Sam Black” is still widely associated across Asia and Africa with the father figure in public relations.

Black's first employment was as an ophthalmic optician, from which he ventured into media work for the BBC's broadcast of the Women's Hour from Alexandra Palace. He then developed his professional public relations experience through organizing exhibitions and conferences in 51 countries promoting British industry. Although belittled by some of his International Public Relations Association (IPRA) colleagues for not coming up through the general practitioner ranks, it is clear from Black's writing that he recognized that his public relations specialization was an important contribution to both public relations and national development. The confirmation of the widespread influence of Black's work came in 1969 when the Crown and the British government awarded him an MBE. His [Page 85]personal definition of public relations was “Public relations practice is the art and science of achieving harmony with the environment through mutual understanding based on truth and full information” (Melvin Sharpe, personal communication, November 10, 2003).

In addition to his promotion work, Black was a prolific writer, producing numerous articles and more than a dozen books, beginning in 1962 with the first edition of Practical Public Relations (the fourth edition was co-authored with Ball State professor Mel Sharpe in 1983). He also wrote what was arguably one of the first public relations management books in the world, The Role of Public Relations in Management, in 1972. His last book, The Practice of Public Relations, was published in 1995, but he continued to comment about the practice until his death in 1999. Black was also the organizer of some of the most successful IPRA World Congress gatherings, where more than 1,000 delegates from around the world came to hear him. He was a sought-after speaker, doing lectures in more than 100 countries on five continents, including Australia and Asia, and in countries from Nigeria to China. Black gave the keynote address at the first International Seminar on Corporate Public Relations in Shenzhen, China, in 1990, where 200 practitioners from 21 Chinese provinces listened to his lecture and then asked him questions for more than two hours. He returned to China and Hong Kong in 1992, where he worked with the Chinese Public Relations Institute and contributed to a prospectus for the China Global PR Company. He followed that in Hong Kong with work on the IPRA's conference program.

Perhaps Black's most enduring contribution to the development of public relations was his development and promotion of public relations education. He was particularly interested in promoting education in some of the more undeveloped regions in Africa and Southeast Asia.

In September 1980, he organized a special IPRA Educators' meeting in Hong Kong; the proceedings of this meeting became the basis for IPRA Gold Paper No. 4, titled “Model for Public Relations Education for Professional Practice” and published in 1982. IPRA Gold Paper No. 7, “Public Relations Education—Recommendation and Standards,” was published in September 1990. In the mid-1980s he completed a world tour that again toin tookok him to the Far East, Australasia, and Africa; along the way he received recognition for his work from a number of local and regional public relations societies. In particular, Black played an important part in helping public relations education develop in Kenya and Nigeria. He also established and conducted a summer school for the Zimbabwe Institute of Public Relations.

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