Emmy Award-Winning Journalist Mary Braxton-Joseph Moves to Sarasota
Emmy Award-winning television journalist and documentary filmmaker Mary Braxton-Joseph, along with her husband, James A. Joseph, former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa, splits her time between Sarasota and Chapel Hill, N.C., where she helps train women to run for elective office, and he is professor emeritus at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Braxton-Joseph was senior adviser for media relations at the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C., and served on the Rhodes Scholars Selection Committee and on the board of the North Carolina School for the Arts. Appreciative of Sarasota’s weather and cultural offerings, she says, “We’re down here every chance we get.”
HOW WE DISCOVERED SARASOTA
“Debra Jacobs, who was then at the Selby Foundation, invited my husband to speak at their scholarship luncheon. We knew each other from the Council on Foundations. My husband asked me, ‘Want to go to Florida in December?’ We had such a wonderful time and we said then if we ever were to sell our place in Cape Town we would definitely consider Sarasota. We’re so happy we found it.”
ROLL ‘EM
“I still pursue documentary filmmaking and I’m always on the lookout for good subjects. I was just talking with a couple who [volunteer for] the Guardian ad Litem program and that interests me. Right now I’m engaged in women’s issues. I’m about to be chair of the board of Lillian’s List, which trains progressive, pro-choice women for the North Carolina state legislature. We had 16 candidates run in November and 10 got elected.”
A TASTE OF HOME
“The first time we went to the Bijou Café, we noticed a couple of items that looked South African and we met the chef [owner and South Africa native J.P. Knaggs]. We felt that a little bit of South Africa was right here in Sarasota.”
ALL ROADS LEAD TO SRQ
“It was my privilege to interview [former PBS News Hour South African correspondent] Charlayne Hunter Gault for the Community Foundation luncheon series. We’ve known Charlayne and her husband for decades. [But] we didn’t know they lived here! I also joined the Media Roundtable; [the president] Irwin Starr is a former boss of mine. I say all roads lead to Sarasota; there are so many people we know here from other places.”
