名人轶事50:One of the Most Honored Reporters in the United States

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Doug Johnson with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN

AMERICA. Today, we tell about the life of writer and reporter, Carl Rowan. He

was one of the most honored reporters in the United States.

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VOICE ONE:

Carl Rowan was known for the powerful stories that he wrote for major

newspapers. His columns were published in more than one hundred newspapers

across the United States. He was the first black newspaper columnist to have

his work appear in major newspapers.

Carl Rowan

Carl Rowan called himself a newspaperman. Yet, he was also a writer of best-

selling books. He wrote about the lives of African American civil rights

leader, Reverend Martin Luther King Junior and United States Supreme Court

Justice, Thurgood Marshall.

Carl Rowan also was a radio broadcaster and a popular public speaker. For

thirty years, he appeared on a weekly television show about American

politics.

VOICE TWO:

Carl Rowan won praise over the years for his reports about race relations in

America. He provided a public voice for poor people and minorities in

America. He influenced people in positions of power.

VOICE TWO(cont):

Mister Rowan opened many doors for African Americans. He was the first black

deputy Secretary of State in the administration of President John F. Kennedy.

And he was the first black director of the United States Information Agency

which at the time supervised the Voice of America.

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VOICE ONE:

Carl Rowan was born in Nineteen-Twenty-Five in the southern city of

Ravenscroft, Tennessee. He grew up during the Great Depression, one of the

worst economic times in the United States. His family was very poor. His

father stacked wood used for building, when he had work. His mother worked

cleaning the homes of white people when she could. The Rowan family had no

electricity, no running water, no telephone and no radio. Carl said he would

sometimes steal food or drink warm milk from the cows on nearby farms.

The Rowans did not even have a clock. As a boy, Carl said he knew if it was

time to go to school by the sound of a train. He said if the train was late,

he was late.

VOICE TWO:

Growing up, Carl had very little hope for any change. There were not many

jobs for blacks in the South. The schools were not good. Racial tensions were

high. Laws were enforced to keep blacks and whites separate.

It was a teacher who urged Carl to make something of himself. Bessie Taylor

Gwynn taught him to believe he could be a poet or a writer. She urged him to

write as much as possible. She would even get books for him because blacks

were banned from public libraries.

Bessie Taylor Gwynn made sure that Carl finished high school. And he did. He

graduated at the top of his class.

VOICE ONE:

Carl entered Tennessee State College in Nineteen-Forty-Two. He almost had to

leave college after the first few months because he did not have enough

money. But on the way to catch a bus, his luck changed. He found the twenty

dollars he needed to stay in college.

VOICE ONE(cont):

Carl Rowan did so well in college that he was chosen by the United States

Navy to become one of the first fifteen black Navy officers. He said that

experience changed his life.

Carl served on ships during World War Two. Afterward, he returned to college

and graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio. He went on to receive his master

’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota.

VOICE TWO:

In Nineteen-Forty-Eight, Carl Rowan became a reporter for the Minneapolis

Tribune newspaper in Minnesota. He was one of the first black reporters to

write for a major daily newspaper.

As a young reporter, he covered racial tensions in the South during the civil

rights movement. In Nineteen-Fifty-Six, he traveled to the Middle East to

cover the war over the Suez Canal. He also reported from Europe, India and

other parts of Asia. He won several major reporting awards.