NOTABLE ARKANSAS
He was born in 1925, near Gould, in Lincoln County, to a mother who was a widowed cotton sharecropper. The family moved to Little Rock, where he attended Dunbar High School. In 1950, he graduated from Philander Smith College with a degree in political science and was hired by the Arkansas Democrat, becoming the first black reporter for a white-owned Arkansas newspaper. At the newspaper he championed racial justice, arguing for black people to be addressed as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” Eventually, his editors yielded.
He became a political activist, helping Daisy Bates guide the Little Rock Nine. During the 1960s, he served as assistant director of the Governor’s Council on Human Relations; the council acted as a liaison with national civil rights activists. In 1962, in recognition of his civil rights activism, Philander Smith granted him an honorary doctorate. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington and in the Selma march. He was with Dr. King when King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller chose him as a special assistant and adviser on racial matters.
In 1994, the Arkansas Department of Justice awarded him the Distinguished Service Award “in recognition of his many years of service and his many contributions to the civil rights movement.”
Who was this Arkansas political activist who, for several years, made Ebony magazine’s annual list of the “100 Most Influential African Americans?”
Who was this Arkansas political activist who, for several years, made Ebony magazine’s annual list of the “100 Most Influential African Americans?”
Dr. Ozell Sutton