THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
"Shouldn't I Be Good?"
Editor and reporter James Edward Causey was born on August 1, 1969 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Otha R. Causey and James D. Causey. Causey graduated from Marshall High School in Milwaukee in 1987. He received his B.A. degree in communications from Marquette University in Milwaukee in 1992 and his M.B.A. from Cardinal Stritch University in Fox Point, Wisconsin in 2002.
Causey became interested in journalism in middle school when he won an essay contest about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Milwaukee Community Journal, the state's largest African-American newspaper. He started writing for that newspaper periodically and then, as a student at Marshall High School, landed an internship at the Milwaukee Sentinel. Causey then worked as a reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel from 1987 through 1995. Since 1995, Causey has been a reporter, editor, and editorial writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where he has also served as the night city editor. Causey became an editor in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's metro department in 1999. That same year, he began serving as the president and treasurer for the Wisconsin Black Media Association. In 2008, Causey was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He joined the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorial board in June 2008 as an editorial writer on urban affairs.
Causey resides in Milwaukee and has one child, Taylor Marie Causey.
Causey was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on November 17, 2008.