Zara Buggs-Taylor, civil rights activist, media critic, dies

Zara Buggs Taylor, noted civil rights advocate, founder of the Media Image Coalition and former director of Employment Access and Human Resources at the Writers Guild of America, has died.

Taylor died Saturday night, November 19, at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California after a four-year battle with scleroderma. Scleroderma is an autoimmune rheumatic disease that affects connective tissue and can manifest as hardening of the skin.

This past October, Taylor received the John Allen Buggs award at the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations annual John Anson Ford Human Relations Awards. The award is named after the late Dr. John Allen Buggs, who was the Los Angeles Commission’s first director, former Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and also Taylor’s father. The award recognized Taylor’s long career of activism for human rights, and against stereotypical, biased images and hiring practices in the media.

Taylor retired as director of Employment Access and Human Resources for the Writers Guild of America earlier this year, after 11 years. In her position as head of the Guild’s Employment Access Department, Taylor worked with producers, studio and network heads and writers to increase employment opportunities for black, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, women, over 40, Gay and Lesbian and disabled professional members in the motion picture, broadcast, cable and new technologies industries.

In September 2000, at the Congressional Black Caucus, Taylor testified on a panel chaired by Hon. Donald Payne (D – New Jersey) about media images and employment of African Americans. Taylor also spearheaded the creation of the Joan Young Memorial Award, presented by the California Governor’s Committee of Disabled Persons. The award is given to a writer who is challenged with a disability.

Taylor served for 10 years as senior staff consultant to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations. She also helped create and staff the commission’s Media Image Coalition. The MIC works to promote employment access and balanced depictions of minorities and women in television and film, and currently has more than 30 member organizations.

In 1997, Taylor was appointed to President Bill Clinton’s Communications Committee and the Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities. She was also involved in the President’s Initiative on Race.

Taylor also worked diligently against discrimination in the Los Angeles housing market while employed at the Westside Fair Housing Council in the mid-1980s.

Taylor received her bachelor’s from Spelman College, a master’s in public administration from California State University, Los Angeles, and her juris doctorate from Loyola Law School.

She often credited her father as her inspiration. He was a front line fighter for civil rights, both on the professional arena and at home. Taylor’s mother, Mary Gale Buggs, passed away this past September, at the age of 87.

A former actress and singer, Taylor was also a granddaughter of Zara Cully Brown, who co-starred as Mother Jefferson on the CBS television series “The Jeffersons.”

Born in Ocala, Florida, Taylor resided in the View Park area of Los Angeles. She is survived by her husband, William Roscoe Taylor III; son and daughter-in-law, William Roscoe Taylor IV and Cherissa Acosta Taylor; her sister and brother-in-law, Dianne Buggs Dix and Robbie Dix; nephew Robbie John Dix; cousins Leonora Prince and Margaret Johnson; and an extended family of many trusted friends and colleagues.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 11:00 a.m., at St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church, 2800 Stanford Street, Los Angeles, California 90011, 323-232-3494.