Harry Ashmore

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Harry S. Ashmore
Ashmore in the 1970s
Born
Harry Scott Ashmore

(1916-07-28)July 28, 1916
Greenville, South Carolina, U.S.
DiedJanuary 20, 1998(1998-01-20) (aged 81)
Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materClemson Agricultural College
OccupationJournalist
SpouseBarbara Edith Laier
AwardsPulitzer Prize (1957)

Harry Scott Ashmore (July 28, 1916 – January 20, 1998) was an American journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials in 1957 on the school integration conflict in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Early life and career

Ashmore was born in

United States Third Army. After the war, Harry Ashmore became the editorial writer at the Charlotte News (in Charlotte, North Carolina).[1][2]

Arkansas Gazette

In 1947 Ashmore was recruited to be the editorial writer at the

civil rights, a contentious subject in southern states, and newspapers around the United States reprinted the speech or excerpts from it.[1]

Ashmore wrote the first of his eleven books in 1954. The Negro and the Schools was a report of a

United States Supreme Court handed down its decision ending school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. Chief Justice Earl Warren later told Ashmore that the book was used as a source while drafting the 1955 implementation ruling known as Brown II.[1]

Also in 1954, Ashmore came to the aid of

socialist school in Arkansas. Faubus at first tried to deny the charge, but Cherry produced documentary evidence. Unhappy with Cherry's tactics, Ashmore ghostwrote a speech for Faubus to respond to the charges. The speech was successful and has been credited with saving Faubus's political career. In 1955, Ashmore took a leave of absence for a year to work on Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign.[1]

In 1957 the Federal courts ordered

Little Rock Crisis. Faubus defied the court order, bur Ashmore editorialized for compliance with the law, which ended the friendship between them. Ashmore became a rallying point for moderates and liberals in Arkansas and a figure of hatred for segregationists, who labeled him a carpetbagger.[1] In 1958, the Arkansas Gazette won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, For demonstrating the highest qualities of civic leadership, journalistic responsibility and moral courage in the face of great public tension during the school integration crisis of 1957. The newspaper's fearless and completely objective news coverage, as well as its reasoned and moderate policy, did much to restore calmness and order to an overwrought community, reflecting great credit on its editors and its management. In the same year Harry Ashmore won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for the forcefulness, dispassionate analysis and clarity of his editorials on the school integration conflict in Little Rock.[3]

In 1959, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a resolution to rename Toad Suck Ferry to Ashmore Landing. Governor Faubus vetoed the resolution on the grounds that the name change would defame a well-known landing.[1]

Later life

In 1959 Ashmore left the Arkansas Gazette and moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he joined the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. He served as President of the Center from 1969 to 1974.[4] He also served as the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica from 1960 until 1963, and afterwards as Director of Editorial Research.[5] Ashmore received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award for 1995-1996.[6]

In 1967 and 1968 Harry Ashmore traveled to North Vietnam with Bill Baggs (editor of The Miami News) on a private peace mission. While there, they interviewed Ho Chi Minh about what conditions would be necessary to end the Vietnam War.[7] He speaks about his experiences in the 1968 documentary film In the Year of the Pig.[citation needed]

In 1989, Ashmore published Unseasonable Truth: The Life of Robert Maynard Hutchins. It's a voluminous (49 chapters, 616 pages, 1,057 endnotes, 4-page bibliographic notes, and 30-page index) biography of former Yale Law Dean and University of Chicago President Robert Hutchins.[8]

Harry Ashmore died in Santa Barbara, California on January 20, 1998.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Sawyer, Nathania. "Harry Scott Ashmore (1916–1998)". The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
  2. ISSN 0042-675X. Archived from the original
    on 2006-10-04. Retrieved 2006-07-11.
  3. ^ "The Pulitzer Prize Winners 1958". the Pulitzer Board. Retrieved 7 September 2011.
  4. ^ Sitton, Claude (1982-06-20). "Our Record on Racism". The New York Times. p. 2. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
  5. ^ Ashmore, Harry (March 1966). "Custodians of the City". The Niemans Reports. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Archived from the original on 2006-09-08. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
  6. ^ "16th Annual RFK Book Award (1995-1996)". Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. Archived from the original on 2010-11-29. Retrieved 2006-07-11.
  7. ^ "Marigold, Sunflower, and the Continuing Search for Peace, January–February". Foreign Relations, 1964-1968, Volume V, Vietnam 1967. U.S. Department of State. 1967-01-01. Retrieved 2005-06-25.
  8. ^ . ASIN 0316053961. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Further reading

External links
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