Born on August 11th, 1925, and died on September 23rd, 2000, Carl Thomas Rowan was a prominent African-American author, journalist, and government official who published columns syndicated across the United States. Carl Rowan was at one point the highest-ranking black American in the United States authority or government.
His Background
Carl Thomas Rowan was born in Ravenscroft, Tennessee, the son of Johnnie, a cleaner and a cook, and Thomas Rowan, who stacked lumber. He was brought up in McMinnville, Tennessee, during the time of the Great Depression. Carl Rowan was very determined to have a good education. He graduated from Bernard High School in the mid-20th century (1942) as a valedictorian and class President. After graduating from high school, Carl Rowan worked by cleaning porches at a TB hospital to go to Tennessee State College in Nashville. He studied at Tennessee State University from 1942 to 1943 and Washburn University from 1943 to 1944. He was one of the 1st black Americans to serve as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy.
Carl Rowan was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Omega Psi Phi fraternity is a historically black American Greek-lettered fraternity. The organization has more than 700 undergraduate and graduate chapters. The fraternity came into existence on November 17th, 1911. Three Howard University juniors are responsible for the fraternity’s formation. Carl Rowan graduated from Oberlin College in 1947 and attained a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota, a year later in 1948. He started his journalism writing career for the black American newspapers St. Paul Recorder, now the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, and Minneapolis Spokesman. He went on to be a copywriter for The Minneapolis Tribune and later became a staff writer from 1950 to 1961, reporting extensively on the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1960, some individuals denied Carl Rowan membership to a club because it was racially segregated. This subsequently inspired Joe Glazer to write the song known as ‘I Belong to a Private Club.’ In a 1964 interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book ‘Who Speaks for the Negro?’ Carl Rowan reflected on his reporting of the Civil Rights Movement and his opinions on the North and the South’s distinctions, persecution and prejudices, and black Americans’ political power.
In 1961, President John Kennedy appointed Carl Rowan as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. The following year, 1962, he served as a delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Carl Rowan became the United States Ambassador to Finland in 1963. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Carl Rowan as the Director of the USIA. USIA means United States Information Agency. In serving as Director of the United States Information Agency, Carl Rowan became the 1st black American to hold a seat on the National Security Council.
From 1966 to 1998, Carl Rowan wrote a syndicated column for the Chicago Sun-Times. From 1967 to 1996, he was a panelist on a television program known as Agronsky and Company, later named Inside Washington. Carl Rowan was a fair opponent whose arguments were well-balanced and persuasive. He always came across as the voice of reason. Carl Rowan’s appeared on the master list of Nixon political opponents. Carl Rowan was a 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his commentaries. Carl Rowan is the only journalist in history to win the Sigma Delta Chi medallion for journalistic excellence in 3 successive years.
Carl T. Rowan was a famous and highly decorated journalist. Publishers published Carl Rowan’s columns in more than 100 newspapers across the United States of America. In 1968, he attained or received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. In 1997, he achieved the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. NAACP stands for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Thurgood Marshall’s only interview while serving on the United States Supreme Court was for Rowan’s 1988 documentary.
The National Press Club gave Carl Thomas Rowan its 1999 Fourth Estate Award for lifetime achievement. On January 9th, 2001, Madeleine Albright, the United States Secretary of State, dedicated the press briefing room at the State Department to the Carl Thomas Rowan Briefing room.
As stated earlier, Carl Thomas Rowan lost his life in Washington on September 23rd, 2000, due to kidney and heart diseases or ailments in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at Washington Hospital Center. Carl Rowan was 75 and had diabetes before he passed on. Carl Thomas Rowan had a wife named Vivien and had over two children they shared (2 sons and one daughter. Carl Rowan’s two sons are Carl Jr., a lawyer, and Jeffrey, a clinical psychologist. His daughter is called Barbara Rowan Jones. She is a formal journalist like Carl Rowan. Carl Rowan also has several grandchildren, four.
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott
In the late 1950s, Carl Rowan covered the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the South, including the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, as a result of Rosa Park’s refusal to give up or relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger. As the only African or black reporter covering the story for a national newspaper, Carl Rowan struck a unique alliance or friendship with the boycott’s leaders, including Martin Luther King, an activist. When the news of an unlikely compromise boycott settlement came to Carl Rowan’s attention across the Associated Press wire, he told King, who decided to discredit the story, which was to appear in a Montgomery newspaper, hence ensuring the boycott continuance.
About Project Excellence
Carl Rowan founded the Project Excellence in the late 20th century (1987). The Project Excellence was a college scholarship program for African high school seniors who showed excellent writing and speaking skills.
Carl Rowan formed Project Excellence to fight negative peer pressure that black students felt and reward students who rose above negative peer influence and stereotypes and excelled academically. Chaired by Carl Rowan, a committee of journalists, school officials, and community leaders oversaw the program. The program members were black American students in the senior year of high school from private, parochial, and public schools in the Metropolitan Washington region, including Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
The Shooting Controversy
Carl Rowan gained public notoriety on June 14th, 1988, when he shot an unarmed teenage trespasser known as Ben Smith. The interloper was a near-naked teen who had been skinny-dipping with allies in Carl Rowan’s pool, and the columnist’s weapon was an unregistered 22 caliber pistol.
From records, when Carl Rowan heard the police arrive, he stepped outside to let them in. it was then, Carl says, that a tall man who was smoking Marijuana confronted him. Carl Rowan said that he repeatedly warned the intruder that he had a weapon and that he would shoot. Carl Rowan said that he told the intruder to freeze and stay where he was since he had a gun. Carl Rowan reported that the intruder kept coming at him and he felt forced to shoot in self-defense. Carl Rowan says that he aimed at the man’s feet, but it hit him in the wrist when the man lunged forward.
Benjamin Smith, who was 18, gave a different version of the story. He said that he was in his underwear and that he climbed out of the pool innocently. He says that he never spoke to Carl Rowan. He just shot him and closed the door, and went back hiding in his house.
The authorities charged Carl Rowan for firing a gun that he didn’t own legally. The police arrested Carl Rowan, and the court tried him. During the trial, he argued that he had the right to use any means necessary to protect himself and his loved ones or family. He also said the caliber pistol he used was exempt from the District’s handgun prohibition law as it belonged to his older son, who was also a former FBI agent. Carl Rowan was called out for hypocrisy since he was a gun control advocate.
In a 1981 column, he supported or advocated a law that said that anyone found in possession of a handgun apart from a legitimate law officer goes to jail. In 1985, he called for a universal and complete federal prohibition on the manufacture, sale, importation, and possession of handguns except for authorized military personnel and the police force.
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Carl Rowan’s Works
Some of Carl Thomas Rowan’s works include ‘South of Freedom,’ ‘The Pitiful and the Proud,’ ‘Go South to Sorrow,’ ‘Wait till Next Year: The Life Story of Jackie Robinson,’ ‘Just Between Us Blacks’ and ‘Breaking Barriers: A Memoir.’
His other works include ‘Growing up Black: From the Slave Days to the Present,’ ‘Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall’ and ‘The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-Up Call.’
In conclusion, we might say that Carl Rowan was a great leader. Just like Martin Luther King, he advocated for peoples’ economic and social rights. He strongly condemned racial discrimination, a problem still ongoing in the country, in the United States of America.
