Booker, Simeon Saunders Jr.
1918-2017 · Contribution: 1952-2007
Journalist; Washington bureau chief
Became the first Black staff reporter at the Washington Post in 1952, then spent 51 years as Jet magazine's Washington bureau chief, most notably delivering the 1955 Emmett Till murder trial to a national audience
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1918, Baltimore, Maryland
- Active since
- 1952
- Category
- Press & Photography
- Best known for
- First Black staff reporter at the Washington Post; Jet's coverage of the Emmett Till trial
Impact on the world
Booker's Emmett Till reporting helped make a single Mississippi murder a national reckoning; over 53 years he chronicled ten presidencies and the civil rights movement for the Black press's flagship magazine.
Sources
- Washington Post
1 more sources and references are available to members.
Related visionaries
Gilliam, Dorothy Pearl Butler
1936-present
Became the first African American woman hired as a reporter at The Washington Post in 1961, launching a 50-year career there that included covering the integration of the University of Mississippi and, later, co-founding the journalism-diversity organization now known as the Maynard Institute
Payne, Ethel Lois
1911-1991
Became, alongside Alice Dunnigan, one of the first Black women in the White House press corps, earning the title “First Lady of the Black Press” for three decades of Washington and international reporting for the Chicago Defender that helped set the national civil rights agenda
Jarrett, Vernon Daurice
1918-2004
Became the first African American syndicated columnist at both the Chicago Tribune (1970) and the Chicago Sun-Times (1983), writing nearly 4,000 columns over a 50-year career and co-founding the National Association of Black Journalists in 1975
Sleet, Moneta J. Jr.
1926-1996
Became the first African American man to win the Pulitzer Prize and the first person to win it while working for a Black-owned publication, awarded in 1969 for his photograph of Coretta Scott King at Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral