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Simeon Booker coming to YSU
Penny Wells talks about bringing Simeon Booker to YSU for fall commencement on December 15th.
Jet and Ebony magazines
Ernie Brown, regional editor at the Vindicator, discusses how he used to read Simeon Booker's columns when he was younger.
Civil Rights journo Booker receives prestigious honor
Simeon Booker, a journalist raised in Youngstown, is the 2015 recipient of the prestigious George Polk Career Acheivement Award for his courageous reporting throughout the Civil Rights Movement.
Booker: 1955 Missippi and "state condoned terror"
Simeon Booker recalls the shocking "raw hatred" and "state condoned terror" that he experienced while traveling through Mississippi for the first time.
Booker: Preparing for a civil rights rally in the Deep South
In this excerpt, Booker writes about the events leading to a rally for black voting rights in the town Mound Bayou, which at the time was known as the "Jewel of the Delta."
Booker: Civil rights progress made segregationists nervous
Booker explains the history of the town Mound Bayou, and how Theodore Roosevelt named the black township "Jewel of the Delta" to spite the extreme racists and segregationists.
Booker: Voting rally leader threatened by segregationists
Before the voting rally in Mound Bayou, Booker describes his and his photographer's host, who happened to be the voting rally leader, and the peculiar and unsettling threats that he had received.
Booker: Blacks fought for rights, didn't leave Mississippi
"For a black person to live day after day under the conditions I was seeing [in Mississippi] seemed second only to a death sentence."
Jimmy Hicks recounts Emmett Till investigation: Part 1
Future executive director of the New York Amsterdam News, James Hicks played a significant role in the coverage of the Emmett Till murder. He was the first black member of the State Department Correspondents Association and the first black reporter to cover the United Nations.
Hicks, Part 2: Till murder witnesses' lives were endangered
When Hicks and Booker finally uncovered the truth of the corruption and lies behind the Till murder, they were stopped from publishing the story by NAACP leaders: “We don’t want to get anybody killed. Wait.”
Hicks, Part 3: Witnesses were afraid to testify for the Till murder
As Hicks and Booker uncovered more and more information of the Till murder, pressure on potential witnesses and the reporters continued to grow.
Hicks, Part 4: Reporters on Till case threatened repeatedly
From the outright refusal of press access to cross burnings, the black reporters covering the Till trial faced threats and obstacles every step of the way.