Gale Horton Gay

Gale Harriet Horton Gay was born on April 10, 1954 in Brooklyn, New York to Jenny and J.C Horton. The family moved to Mount Vernon, New York where Gay attended public school. At Washington Junior High School, Gay played the violin in the school orchestra. It was here where she would write and perform her first musical composition. After graduation from Mount Vernon High School in 1972, she would enter Morrisville State College, in Morrisville, New York, and received her A.A degree in journalism in 1976 and her B.S degree in communications in 1978 from Syracuse University.

Gay was selected for an internship program that would lead to her writing for numerous publications, which including the Oakland Press, the Fort Worth Press and the Dallas Times Herald. In 1987, Gay went to work for Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital as the Director of Public Relations. Here, she promoted cultural diversity. This same year, she participated in the march for racial equality when she was one of the 20,000 marchers from around the country who converged on Forsyth County, Georgia. The march was led by Hosea Williams. Successful in public relations, Gay headed her own companies, Horton–Lind Communications and Horton Gay Communication from 1993 to 1999.

In 1999, Gay became part of Ace Communications, which then published the Champion Newspaper which became the legal organ for DeKalb County Georgia, the first African American newspaper to do so. Today, she is the Managing Editor of both the Champion Newspaper and the Good Life magazine published by Ace Communications.

Gay lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia with her husband, Cedric Gay, and her two children, Jean-Pierre and Imani.

Gay was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 14, 2006.