Lenoir Chambers

Joseph Lenoir Chambers (December 26, 1891 – January 10, 1970) was an American writer, biographer, historian, and Pulitzer prize-winning newspaper editor. He served in the American Expeditionary Forces, and briefly commanded a combat company, during World War I.

In 1960, as editor of The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Virginia (now owned by Tribune Publishing), he won the Pulitzer for Editorial Writing, for his series of editorials in favor of school desegregation, especially in Virginia. A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, he was elected to the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 1991.

Author Alex Liedholdt published a book on Chambers, Standing Before the Shouting Mob: Lenoir Chambers and Virginia's Massive Resistance to Public School Integration, in 2008.

Background and education Joseph Lenoir Chambers was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on December 26, 1891, to father, Joseph Lenoir Chambers Sr., and mother Grace Singleton Dewey Chambers. He attended Woodberry Forest preparatory school, graduating in 1910.

Chambers served as 1st lieutenant, with the 52nd Infantry of the 6th Division, United States Army, and later at Division Headquarters, in the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Germany (1917–1919). He commanded a combat company in France, for a short time.

Career On returning from his military service, Chambers served as the director of the University of North Carolina news bureau, until 1921; the position made him responsible for keeping the state's newspapers informed of the activities of the university. He also served as a reporter, city editor, and then associate editor for the Greensboro Daily News, in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1929, he joined the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, as associate editor, under Louis Isaac Jaffe. He married, Roberta Burwell Strudwick, the papers society editor, in 1928.

Civic engagement Chambers was a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the National Conference of Editorial Writers. He continued to stay involved in historical and civic activities, after retirement. Stonewall Jackson, Volume I, W. Morrow, 1959. Stonewall Jackson, Volume II, W. Morrow, 1959. Seven days I to the last march, Morrow, 1959. Excellence in a democracy, Golden Fleece, 1959. The South and the nation: at the 167th commencement exercises of the University of North Carolina, Kenan Stadium, Chapel Hill, June 5, 1961, University of Chapel Hill, 1961. Notes on life in occupied Norfolk, 1865, Virginia Historical Society, 1965. Salt water & printer's ink: Norfolk and it's newspapers, 1865-1965, co-author with Joseph E. Shank, Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 1967. History as an avocation, Virginia Historical Society, 1968.