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.
(MUSIC)
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.
(MUSIC)
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.
