At his retirement he was editor, publisher and CEO. He retained the title chairman emeritus. In , Seigenthaler became founding editorial director of USA Today and served in that position for a decade, retiring from both the Nashville and national newspapers in A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, he served for two decades as a member of the Nieman advisory board.
Seigenthaler left journalism briefly in the early s to serve in the U. His work in the field of civil rights led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides. During that crisis, while attempting to aid Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Ala. Kennedy Library Foundation. Harris Wofford , the president's Special Assistant for Civil Rights, later pointed out: "Seigenthaler arrived in time to escort the first group of wounded and shaken riders from the bus terminal to the airport, and flew with them to safety in New Orleans.
The Freedom Riders now traveled onto Montgomery. One of the passengers, James Zwerg , later recalled: "As we were going from Birmingham to Montgomery, we'd look out the windows and we were kind of overwhelmed with the show of force - police cars with sub-machine guns attached to the backseats, planes going overhead We had a real entourage accompanying us.
Then, as we hit the city limits, it all just disappeared. As we pulled into the bus station a squad car pulled out - a police squad car. The police later said they knew nothing about our coming, and they did not arrive until after 20 minutes of beatings had taken place. Later we discovered that the instigator of the violence was a police sergeant who took a day off and was a member of the Klan. They knew we were coming. It was a set-up. The passangers were attacked by a large mob.
They were dragged from the bus and beaten by men with baseball bats and lead piping. Taylor Branch , the author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, wrote: "One of the men grabbed Zwerg's suitcase and smashed him in the face with it.
Others slugged him to the ground, and when he was dazed beyond resistance, one man pinned Zwerg's head between his knees so that the others could take turns hitting him. As they steadily knocked out his teeth, and his face and chest were streaming blood, a few adults on the perimeter put their children on their shoulders to view the carnage.
If you want to talk about heroism, consider the black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said 'Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital. I don't know if he lived or died. Some of the Freedom Riders, including seven women, ran for safety. The women approached an African-American taxicab driver and asked him to take them to the First Baptist Church.
However, he was unwilling to violate Jim Crow restrictions by taking any white women. He agreed to take the five African-Americans, but the two white women, Susan Wilbur and Susan Hermann, were left on the curb. They were then attacked by the white mob. John Seigenthaler, who was driving past, stopped and got the two women in his car.
According to Raymond Arsenault , the author of Freedom Riders : "Suddenly, two rough-looking men dressed in overalls blocked his path to the car door, demanding to know who the hell he was. Seigenthaler replied that he was a federal agent and that they had better not challenge his authority.
Before he could say any more, a third man struck him in the back of the head with a pipe. Seigenthaler shoved her into his car before being hit behind the left ear with a pipe. Knocked unconscious, he was not picked up until police arrived 10 minutes later, with Montgomery Police Commissioner Lester B.
Sullivan noting, "We have no intention of standing police guard for a bunch of troublemakers coming into our city. A brief transition period followed, during which long-time Tennessean reporter John Nye served as publisher. On March 20, , the newspaper made the announcement that Evans' brother, Amon Carter Evans, would be the new publisher.
One of the new Evans' first duties would be to bring back Seigenthaler as editor. The two had worked together before at the paper, when Seigenthaler served as assistant city editor and Evans was an aspiring journalist. On one occasion during that era, the two nearly came to blows over Seigenthaler's assignment of Evans to a story. Evans named Seigenthaler editor of The Tennessean on March 21, With this new team in place, The Tennessean quickly regained its hard-hitting reputation.
One example of the paper's resurgence came following a Democratic primary in August , when The Tennessean found documented evidence of voter fraud based on absentee ballots in the city's second ward. Seigenthaler's friendship with Kennedy became one of the focal points of Jimmy Hoffa's bid to shift his jury tampering trial from Nashville.
Citing "one-sided, defamatory" coverage from the newspaper, Hoffa's lawyers were able to get Seigenthaler to admit he personally wanted Hoffa convicted.
However, the journalist noted that he hadn't conveyed those sentiments to his reporters. Hoffa's lawyers gained a minor victory when the trial was moved to Chattanooga in a change of venue, but Hoffa was nonetheless convicted in after a day trial. The following year, Seigenthaler led a fight for access to the Tennessee state senate chamber in Nashville after a resolution was passed revoking the floor privileges of Tennessean reporter Bill Kovach.
The action came after Kovach had refused to leave a committee hearing following a call for executive session. In December , Seigenthaler and Richard Goodwin represented the Kennedy family when controversy developed about historian William Manchester's book about the John F. Kennedy assassination , Death of a President. Seigenthaler had read an early version of the book, which led to Jacqueline Kennedy threatening a lawsuit over inaccurate and private statements in the publication.
Seigenthaler then took a temporary leave from his duties at the newspaper to work on Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. During this period, the journalist was described by the New York Times as, "one of a handful of advisers in whom [Kennedy] has absolute confidence. Seigenthaler would serve as one of the pallbearers at his funeral, and later co-edited the book An Honorable Profession: A Tribute to Robert F.
Remaining focused on the cause of civil rights, Seigenthaler then supported Tennessee Bishop Joseph Aloysius Durick in during the latter's contentious fight to end segregation, a stance that outraged many in the community who still believed in the concept. As the publisher, Seigenthaler worked with Al Gore, then a reporter, on investigative stories about Nashville city council corruption in the early s.
0コメント