Carl Rowan

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Carl Thomas Rowan (born August 11, 1925 in Ravenscroft, Tennessee , † September 23, 2000 in Washington, DC ) was a journalist and author . As a columnist for the Washington Post and the Chicago Sun-Times , he became one of the best-known African American journalists in the United States .

Life

Rowan grew up as one of five siblings in McMinnville , Tennessee. He left "Bernard High School" as class representative and the best of his year in 1942. After leaving school, he moved to his grandparents in Nashville and initially worked in a hospital for tuberculosis patients. He studied from 1942 to 1943 at Tennessee State University and from 1943 to 1944 at Washburn University . Rowan was one of the first fifteen African American officers in the United States Navy , serving during World War II . He graduated from Oberlin College in 1947 and received a Masters in Journalism from the University of Minnesota in 1948 .

In 1948 he began his career as a proofreader for the Minneapolis Tribune , where he worked as a reporter from 1950. Until 1961, the focus of his reports was the US civil rights movement . In 1950 he married "Vivien Louise Murphy". They had three children.

In 1961, Rowan became Assistant Secretary of State to President John F. Kennedy . The following year he reported on the Cuban Missile Crisis as a delegate to the United Nations . Rowan was US Ambassador to Finland from January 1963 to January 1964 and was then appointed Director of the United States Information Agency under Lyndon B. Johnson . He was the first African American to attend meetings of the National Security Council . In 1965 Rowan resigned from the post and accepted an offer to write a column for the Field Newspaper Service Syndicate. He could also be heard three times a week as a radio commentator for the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company. The column reached almost all households with a newspaper subscription in the United States. This work and his regular reports in Reader's Digest helped him to become nationally known.

From 1966 to 1998 he wrote for the "Chicago Sun-Times" and from 1967 to 1996 was a participant in the political discussion series "Inside Washington".

controversy

Rowan was an advocate of strict gun laws . In a 1981 column, Rowan advocated "a law that anyone with a handgun should be put in jail." In 1985 he advocated "a total ban on the sale, manufacture, import and possession of handguns".

June 14, 1988 Rowan "Neil Smith" shot, a teenager with an unregistered pistol caliber " .22 " to. Smith had illegally used the swimming pool in the garden of Rowan's Washington DC home.

Immediately after the shooting, Rowan became entangled in disagreements about where he got the gun from. Initially, he claimed that he acquired and duly registered the weapon in response to death threats from the Ku Klux Klan . Rowan later testified that it belonged to one of his two sons who was working as an FBI agent and so registration was not required. Police disagreed, finding that state law requires all guns to be registered and anyone who violates that law could face a prison sentence of up to a year and a fine of up to $ 1,000.

In the subsequent process there was a permanent tie of votes among the jury. The judge then declared the process to have failed ("mistrial"). In his autobiography , Rowan wrote that he still advocates a strict gun law, but that he can understand why he would be accused of hypocrisy .

Honors

Works

  • South of Freedom . Louisiana State University Press, 1952, ISBN 978-0-8071-2170-2
  • The Pitiful and the Proud , 1956
  • Go South to Sorrow , 1957
  • Wait till Next Year: The Life Story of Jackie Robinson , 1960
  • Just Between Us Blacks , 1974
  • Breaking Barriers: A Memoir . Little, Brown and Company, 1991, ISBN 978-0-316-73977-1
  • Growing Up Black: From Slave Days to the Present: 25 African-Americans Reveal the Trials and Triumphs of Their Childhoods (co-author). Avon Books, 1992, ISBN 978-0-380-76632-1
  • Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall . Little, Brown and Company, 1993, ISBN 978-0-316-75978-6
  • The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-Up Call . Little, Brown and Company, 1996, ISBN 978-0-316-75980-9

literature

  • Gladys Ten Pfennig: Carl T. Rowan, Spokesman for Sanity . Minneapolis 1971.
  • Lynn Bynum: Carl T. Rowan, Journalist Extraordinary . Afro-American Arts Institute, Indiana University , Bloomington 1975.
  • Carl Thomas Rowan , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 16/1966 from April 11, 1966, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Wikiquote: Carl Rowan  - Quotes

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b CARL ROWAN Biography
  2. ^ Columnist Carl Rowan dies at age 75 ( August 20, 2008 memento in the Internet Archive ), CNN , September 23, 2000
  3. ↑ Original: "a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail - period"
  4. ↑ Original: "A complete and universal federal ban on the sale, manufacture, importation and possession of handguns (except for authorized police and military personnel)"
  5. ^ Rowan Case and the Need to Bear Arms
  6. ↑ Reason: "A hung jury which cannot reach a verdict with the required degree of unanimity"
  7. ↑ More Use Guns In Self Defense ( Memento from July 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award
  9. ^ Fellow Carl T. Rowan, Honorary Degree Citation
  10. ^ NABJ Hall of fame ( Memento from July 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ National Fourth Estate Award - Past Winners
  12. ↑ Sigma Delta Chi Award ( Memento from April 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ US State Dept. Honors Late Carl Rowan - Brief Article , Jan. 29, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Rowan, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rowan, Carl Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION African American journalist, author, and columnist
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Ravenscroft, Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 2000
Place of death Washington, DC