Phyl Garland

A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Phyllis (Phyl) Garland began her career in 1959 as a reporter for The Pittsburgh Courier, a nationally distributed African-American newspaper. In May 1963, she went to Binghamton, N.Y., to interview the widow of William Moore, the white mailman who was shot to death while attempting a Freedom Walk to Jackson, Miss. The two articles she wrote were among the few to provide insights into Moore and the effect of his death. Later that year, she covered the March on Washington. While at the Courier ,she also wrote a series on the history of blacks in the labor movement and numerous stories related to housing, education and the arts. After joining the staff of Ebony Magazine in 1965, she went to the Deep South to research Fannie Lou Hamer and other black women in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968, she traveled through Mississippi, writing about the first blacks to elected to public office in that state since the Reconstruction. She also wrote the May 1968 Ebony cover story on the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., following his assassination. Currently, she is a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she has taught for thirty years while continuing to write. She is a specialist in the field of black music.

Dorothy Butler Gilliam

She was a journalist with The Washington Post from October, 1961, until the mid-1960s, then again from 1972 until her retirement in 2003. During her time there, she wrote a regular column on education, politics and race, as well as her own personal experiences. She also edited the Style section and headed up the Young Journalist Development Program, an initiative to cultivate talented young people interested in journalism and create opportunities for minorities – who are often under-represented in newsrooms across the country. Born in Memphis, Tenn., Gilliam holds a bachelor's degree from Lincoln University in Lincoln, Mo., and a master's from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Among her many accolades are her induction into the Society of Professional Journalists' Hall of Fame; the University of Missouri Honor Medal in Journalism (1998); and the Ann O'Hare McCormick Award from the New York Newspaper Women's Club. Gilliam joined the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University as the Shapiro Fellow in September 2003. As a cub society reporter for the Tri-State Defender in Memphis, Tenn., in 1957, she defied her editor’s orders to stay in the newsroom and headed for Little Rock, Ark., to see – and maybe cover – the landmark intergration of Central High School. She found photographer Ernest Withers, made a truce with her angry editor, and covered some of the Little Rock story. Her enthusiasm and initiative impressed editors at Jet magazine, the leading black magazine across the country, and she quickly became an editor for Jet.

John Herbers

He began his journalism career in 1949 in Mississippi. He spent 12 years at the Greenwood Morning Star, the Jackson Daily News and United Press International. During that time, he covered the origins of the Civil Rights movement; the effects of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that public school segregation was unconstitutional; the trial and acquittal of two white men for the murder of Emmett Till – a 14-year-old black boy accused of whistling at a white woman; and other aspects of the racial struggle that consumed the attention of both races throughout the state. In 1963, he joined The New York Times Atlanta bureau. From there he covered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s movements in Birmingham and Selma, Ala., and St. Augustine, Fla.; and the Klu Klux Klan's attacks on civil rights workers and church burnings during the summer of 1964. In 1965, Herbers moved to Washington, D.C., where he covered civil rights legislation, Congress and the White House. He also worked as the Times assistant national editor, Washington bureau news editor and roving national correspondent.

 

Vernon Jarrett

Vernon Jarrett began covering civil rights in the North during the 1940s for the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s most powerful black newspapers. His career has spanned print, broadcasting and the classroom. In 1970, he became the first black syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune. During his 26-year tenure at the Tribune and Chicago Sun Times, Jarrett wrote more than 3,900 commentaries that helped shape the national discussion on race relations. Jarrett then moved to WLS-ABC TV where he produced nearly 1,600 television shows and commentaries. Additionally, Jarrett has served as an on-camera source for the PBS documentaries “Soldiers without Swords — A History of the Black Press in the 20th Century” and “The Promised Land.” Jarrett is a senior fellow at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago; a featured columnist for the Chicago Defender; a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists in 1975 and in 2004 the president-elect of its Chicago chapter.

Ray Jenkins

A Georgia native and University of Georgia graduate, Ray Jenkins began his career in journalism in 1951 as a reporter for The Columbus (Ga.) Ledger. In 1954, he was one of two reporters who covered the Phenix City, Ala., upheaval – coverage which won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for The Ledger. Between 1959 and 1979, he served as city editor, managing editor, executive editor and vice-president of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser-Journal. During his tenure, he covered the rise of Martin Luther King, the governorship of George Wallace and the decisions of federal Judge Frank Johnson, which, in time, would become the foundations of expanded civil rights for blacks in the South. During the 1960s and '70s, Jenkins continued his civil rights reporting at The Christian Science Monitor and then The New York Times. His articles on Wallace defined the segregationist governor to the nation. His series on Johnson earned him the 1970 Gavel Award of the American Bar Association. From 1979-1981, he was special assistant for press affairs to President Jimmy Carter. After 10 years as the editorial page editor of The Evening Sun in Baltimore, he retired from daily journalism in 1992. A member of the Alabama bar, Jenkins was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard Law School in 1964-65, and graduated from the Jones Law Institute in Montgomery, Ala. In 1989, he lectured at journalism programs at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and the University of Beijing. In 1985, he was awarded the Ernie Pyle Award for human interest reporting. He has written extensively on Southern politics and culture for The New York Times and other publications, and is the author of “Blind Vengeance,” a book about the assassination of a federal judge in Alabama in 1989. 

Haynes Johnson

The son of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor Malcom Johnson, Haynes Johnson has distinguished himself as a newspaperman and a political reporter in his own right. Johnson won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for his coverage of the civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Ala. He is a 40-year veteran newsman in the nation's capital, first for the Washington Star and still for the Washington Post. He is the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland. Johnson is considered "one of the most perceptive, the best-informed, and the most level-headed reporters in Washington," according to former London Times editor Godfrey Hodgson in the Washington Post Book World. Thousands of television viewers know him for his reports on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program "Washington Week in Review" and "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Johnson's books on affairs of national interest include: "The Bay of Pigs: The Leaders' Story of Brigade 2056," "In the Absence of Power: Governing America," "Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years," "The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point," and "The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years." Johnson earned his bachelor's in journalism at the University of Missouri and holds a master's from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Herbert Kaplow

Herbert Kaplow, now a Washington correspondent for ABC News, has been a broadcast journalist since his graduation in 1951 from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He spent many years with NBC News reporting on the civil rights movement – from the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown case in 1954 to school desegregation dating back to the Little Rock confrontation in 1957, and including integration crises in other cities. Kaplow has covered almost every political convention for the last quarter of a century. In 1958, he traveled with then-Vice President Richard Nixon on his Latin American tour. During the 1960s, Kaplow covered Nixon again – this time on the campaign trail for California governor's seat, then for president. Kaplow has won numerous awards including a 1983 Unity Award for his involvement in the ABC Radio reports, "The Kennedy Years;" a 1983 Headliner and Unity Award for "The Dream Revisited," an ABC Radio News special report marking the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington; and an Emmy for the ABC series "Directions." A New York City native, he now lives in Falls Church, Va., with his wife Betty. They have three sons.

John Lewis

While still his 20s, John Lewis had already become one of the most effective leaders ofin the civil rights movement. The son of sharecropper, Lewis was born in Alabama, where he attended segregated public schools. After organizing sit-in demonstration in Nashville, Lewis volunteered for the 1961 Freedom Rides, which sought to challenge segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. As a result of participating in these rides, Lewis was severely beaten by angry mobs. From 1963-66, Lewis was the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and became a recognized as one of the “Big Six” leaders in the civil rights movement. In 1963, he was a keynote speaker at the historic “March on Washington.” In what would become a turning point for the civil rights movement, Lewis – then only 25 years old – and fellow activist Hosea Williams began a 54-mile march from Selma, Ala., to the capitol of Montgomery leading more than 500 demonstrators seeking the right to vote. At the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Lewis and the others faced Alabama State Troopers who tried to disperse the marchers with clubs, tear gas and horses. The day – March 7, 1965 – became known as “Bloody Sunday” and the press coverage of the violence so shocked the nation that Congress responded with the 1965 Voting Rights Act guaranteeing the right to vote to every American at the age of 21. The photos of Lewis, confronting the State Troopers and falling under their clubs, became one of the civil rights movement’s most powerful, symbolic images. In 1982, Lewis, a Democrat, began his political career on the Atlanta City Council He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. His congressional district encompasses the city of Atlanta, and parts of Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton and Cobb counties. On many anniversaries of “Bloody Sunday,” Lewis and other civil rights supporters – including then-President Bill Clinton on one occasion – repeat the historic walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in commemoration of the Selma voting rights marches.

Charles Moore

Charles Moore began taking pictures at age 14 in his hometown of Tuscumbia, Ala., the birthplace of Helen Keller. After high school and three years service in the Marines, Moore completed his formal photography training at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif. In April 1989, Moore received the first Kodak Crystal Eagle Award for Impact in Photojournalism for his world-famous photographs of the civil rights struggle taken from 1958-1965. His era-defining pictures of police dogs attacking demonstrators in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 were used by Andy Warhol for his "Red Race Riots" silk screens. Moore also covered the 1962 riots at the University of Mississippi over the admission of the first black student, James Meredith. He also covered the Dominican Republic civil war, violence in Venezuela and Haiti, and the air war in Vietnam for LIFE, The Saturday Evening Post and Fortune. Moore's book of civil rights photography, "Powerful Days," was republished by the University of Alabama Press in 2002.

 

Jack Nelson

A former bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, he has been a journalist for more than 50 years. He covered the past six presidents and every presidential campaign from 1968-1996. Since retiring in December 2001, he has taught as a visiting professor of the University of Southern California's School of Journalism. In 2002, he was Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government where he wrote a research paper on government secrecy. And this year, he directed 20 Northwestern graduate journalism students in writing a series of 17 articles for the Medill News Service on gambling in the United States. Nelson began his career at 18 as a reporter with the Biloxi Daily Herald where his articles on illegal gambling sparked a U.S. Senate committee investigation. Later, he served 12 years at The Atlanta Constitution where his investigative reporting exposed state and local corruption – and earned him several awards. He won a 1960 Pulitzer Prize for exposing conditions at Milledgeville State Hospital, then the world's largest mental institution. From 1965-1970, as the Los Angeles Times' Atlanta bureau chief, he covered the civil rights movement which led to two books: "Terror in the Night: The Klan's Campaign Against the Jews," and "The Orangeburg Massacre," with co-author Jack Bass. Nelson served in The New York Times Washington bureau from 1970-2001. He was presented the Drew Pearson Award for Investigative Journalism, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism and was named a Fellow by the National Society of Journalists.

Moses Newson

As a journalist for the Tri-State Defender in Memphis and the Baltimore Afro-American newspapers, Moses Newson covered almost every major event of the civil rights era. His stories included the 1955 Emmett Till murder trial in Mississippi; school desegregations in Hoxie, Ark. (1955), Clinton, Tenn. (1956) and at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. (1957); and the desegregation of the University of Mississippi in 1962. Newson was one of only two reporters aboard the CORE Freedom Ride bus that was fire bombed in Anniston, Ala., on Mother’s Day, May 14, 1961. He has reported from four United States political conventions. He also covered news in Nigeria, South Africa, Panama, Cuba and Jamaica, as well as the Bahamas independence. Newson holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Lincoln University School of Journalism in Jefferson City, Mo. He also attended Storer College in Harpers Ferry, W. Va. Newson co-authored "Fighting for Fairness: The Life Story of Hall of Fame Sportswriter Sam Lacy." Originally from Fruitland Park, Fla., Newson now lives in Baltimore, Md. with his wife, Lucille. They have four children.

Gene Patterson

He won the Pulitzer Prize for his editorials advocating civil rights while he was editor of The Atlanta Constitution in the 1960s. He went on to become managing editor of The Washington Post, then chairman and CEO of Florida's largest daily newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, until he retired in 1988. His book, "The Changing South of Gene Patterson," published in 2002 by the University Press of Florida, is based on a hundred or so of the 3,200 columns he wrote seven days a week for eight years at The Atlanta Constitution, telling the history as it happened. He was considered by many to be a strong voice of conscience, calling on Southern whites to abandon Jim Crow and embrace civil rights for black Americans. “He could not be bullied or bought and he wrote like an angel,” as fellow journalist Harold Martin said of Patterson in a book, “Ralph McGill, Reporter,” about another legendary Atlanta Constitution editor.

Rob Porter

Formerly the attorney general of the Seneca Nation of Indians, he is now a law professor and Dean’s Research Scholar of Indigenous Nations Law at Syracuse University. Porter founded the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship. He also established the Tribal Law and Government Center to prepare a new generation of advocates for careers representing indigenous nations' legal interests. Porter serves as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri and is a consulting expert or counsel to several Indian nations and organizations. Porter holds a B.A. from Syracuse University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

 

Pedro Ramirez

Pedro Ramirez has reported for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y. , for the past five years, covering local government, education, public safety and military affairs. Ramirez earned his master’s in journalism from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, while concurrently interning at The Syracuse Newspapers. During his time at Newhouse, Ramirez was awarded the 1996 Newhouse Foundation Graduate Newspaper Fellowship for Minorities. After graduation, he became a night cops, public safety and general assignment reporter at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore. Ramirez returned to Syracuse in 1999. In 2001, he began teaching newspaper journalism at the Newhouse School as an adjunct professor. Before his journalism career, Ramirez served as a communications specialist in the U.S. Army Reserve, participating in patrols along the U.S. -- Mexico border and seizing illegal drugs smuggled into the country. Ramirez holds a B.A. in English from Concordia University in Austin, Texas.

Gene Roberts

Gene Roberts has a legendary journalism career spanning 50 years and including at The Detroit Free Press, The News & Observer and The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. He served as the Southern bureau chief for The New York Times in charge of its civil rights coverage from 1965 to 1967. He also reported from Norfolk, Va., when the state was closing public schools to avoid integration after the Brown decision, the spread of the sit-in movement across the South and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s marches in Durham, N.C. After leaving the Times, he became one of the nation’s most respected editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer, which won 17 Pulitzers under his leadership. He currently teaches a course on the press and the civil rights movement at the University of Maryland, and is writing a book on the era. He holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He currently sits as a member of the Harvard University Nieman Fellowship selection committee. He serves on the Board of Governors for Columbia University Seminars on News Media and Society and chairs the Pulitzer Prize Board for awards in arts, letters and journalism. In 1993, he won the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Awards for distinguished contributions to journalism.

John Seigenthaler

A former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, he served for 43 years as an award-winning journalist for The Tennessean, Nashville's morning newspaper. At his retirement he was editor, publisher and CEO. In 1982, Seigenthaler became founding editorial director of USA TODAY and served in that position for a decade, retiring from both the Nashville and national newspapers in 1991. Seigenthaler left journalism briefly in the early 1960s to serve in the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. His civil rights work led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides. During that crisis, while attempting to aid Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Ala., he was attacked by a mob of Klansmen. Seigenthaler now hosts a weekly book-review program, "A Word On Words." He is also a senior advisory trustee of the Freedom Forum. He chairs the annual "Profile in Courage Award" selection committee of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and co-chairs the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for the RFK Memorial. Seigenthaler served on the 18-member National Commission on Federal Election Reform organized in 2001 by former Presidents Carter and Ford. He is a member of the Constitution Project on Liberty and Security, created after the Sept. 11 tragedies in New York and Washington. In 1991, Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values.

Claude Sitton

He covered civil rights in the South for The New York Times from 1958 - 1964. As the Times Southern correspondent, he covered public school desegregation, the Sit-In Movement, the Freedom Rides and voter registration drives throughout the region. He also reported the desegregation of public universities in South Carolina and Alabama; the Ole Miss riot; the assassination of Medgar Evers; demonstrations to open public accommodations in Albany, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala.; and the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. From 1968 until his retirement in 1990, Sitton was editor of The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C., and vice president and editorial director of The News and Observer Publishing Co. After retiring, he served as a senor lecturer at Emory University (1991 – 1994); board member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation (1994 – 1997); and a board member of the Counselors of Oxford College of Emory University (1993 – 2001). Born in Atlanta, Ga., in 1925, Sitton grew up on a farm. He holds a degree from Emory University. He received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and the 1991 George Polk Career Award. Sitton now lives in Oxford, Ga., with his wife, Eva. They have four children.

Walt Swanson

Walt Swanston is the Director of Diversity Management for National Public
Radio (NPR) in Washington, DC. Her job is to shape diversity strategies in staff
development and programming for the national nonprofit radio service.
Swanston has had more than two decades in print and broadcast
journalism and more than 16 years in diversity-focused work with the media. She came to NPR from the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF), where she directed the organization's diversity, educational and international programs for three years. Before coming to the RTNDF, Swanston served as the executive director of UNITY: Journalists of Color, and spearheaded the UNITY '94 and UNITY '99 conventions. She also has served as executive director of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), directed diversity programs at the Newspaper Association of America Foundation and consulted for Knight-Ridder Inc. and other media companies.Swanston's journalism career included posts as executive editor at WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.; and reporter/producer for WETA-TV, the PBS station in Washington, D.C, during which she reported on Congress and the 1976 presidential campaign. She has written on assignment for The National Journal, National Observer, Washingtonian Magazine and The Washington Post. Early in her career she reported for The Washington Star, and San Francisco Examiner. She began covering the civil rights movement as a reporter for the San Francisco Sun-Reporter, a Black weekly newspaper in San Francisco and later for WETA-TV in Washington.

Richard Valeriani

During his 31-plus years as a correspondent for NBC News and The Associated Press, Valeriani reported stories from almost 90 countries and all 50 states. During the mid-1960s, Valeriani reported the civil rights revolution in the American South, including historic events in Birmingham and Selma, Ala. He was hospitalized in Marion, Ala., after being clubbed by a white segregationist during a demonstration. As a reporter, Valeriani also covered riots and rebellions throughout Central and South America. He served as the NBC News bureau chief in Havana and won an Overseas Press Club award for his coverage of the Dominican Republic Civil War. He also covered the Falkand Islands War and the American invasion of Grenada. In 1979, Valeriani published "Travels With Henry," an account of his time as a Washington correspondent for NBC logging 500,000 miles with then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Today, Valeriani works as a free-lance journalist and media consultant and broadcasts a weekly commentary on NBC Radio Network. He is writing a book about the television industry.


Francis Ward

He has been a journalism professor in the Newhouse School, Syracuse University, since 1990. He is a 20-year veteran journalist with posts at The Black Scholar, Ebony and Jet magazines. Ward also wrote a weekly column the black community for the Miami Herald and reported on civil rights and urban affairs for the Los Angeles Times. Ward worked at WHUT-TV in Washington, D.C., and spent five years as an assistant press secretary in the city of Chicago government. Ward holds a master’s from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. Ward has completed work on a book on Chicago politics and Harold Washington as mayor (1983-87).

Ernest C. Withers

He has had a wide-ranging career, having served as a county constable, as an agent with the Tennessee State Alcoholic Beverage Commission and as one of the first black police officers in the City of Memphis. But it is as a photojournalist that he has earned a legendary reputation. In 1943, he entered the Army and convinced his commanding officer to send him to the Army photo school. Upon leaving the Army, he began making portraits, wedding photographs and parties – then took photographic assignments from the Tri-State Defender, the Chicago Defender and other black newspapers across the nation. In the 1950s and 1960s, Withers covered many civil rights events in the South, including the Emmett Till murder case; the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.; school integration in Memphis and Clinton, Tenn.; the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott and the Mack Charles Parker lynching. He was on the scene at the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Withers also covered the killings of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. At the funeral of Medgar Evers in Jackson, Miss., he was beaten by a police officer and arrested. In 1988, Withers was inducted into the Black Press Hall of Fame.