McGill, Ralph, 1898-1969
Biography:
Ralph McGill, as editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, was a leading voice for racial and ethnic tolerance in the South from the 1940s through the 1960s. As an influential daily columnist, he broke the code of silence on the subject of segregation, chastising a generation of demagogues, timid journalists, and ministers who feared change. When the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools in 1954 and southern demagogues led defiance of the court, segregationists vilified McGill as a traitor to his region for urging white southerners to accept the end of segregation. In 1959, at the age of sixty-one, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. ("Ralph McGill (1898-1969)," New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 11, 2008: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org.
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Archival Collections and Reference Resources
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement (Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill))
- Southern school news (University of Georgia Libraries)
- WSB-TV Newsfilm Collection (Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection)
- Series of WSB-TV newsfilm clips of Lester Maddox speaking to a white audience, African Americans protest segregation, and newsman Tom Brokaw interviews mayor T. Griffin Walker in Americus, Georgia, 1965 July 29 (Moving images)
- WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Lester Maddox pushing African Americans away from his cafeteria with an ax handle, Atlanta, Georgia, 1965 January 29 (News)
- WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Senator Robert Kennedy speaking to city leaders in Atlanta, Georgia, 1967 September 29 (Moving images)
- WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Senators Thomas J. Dodd and John Sherman Cooper supporting federal legislation guaranteeing rights for African Americans in Washington, D.C., 1963 May 22 (News)