Ralph McGill

Ralph Emerson McGill (February 5, 1898 – February 3, 1969) was an American journalist and editorialist. An anti-segregationist editor, he published the Atlanta Constitution newspaper despite receiving threats and intimidation such as crosses burned on his lawn from white supremacist terror groups. Martin Luther King Jr. named him in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. He was also one of the first critics of Joseph McCarthy. He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1959 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Since his death, he was inducted in the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame and has had a school and a road named after him in Atlanta.

Early life and education McGill was born February 5, 1898, near Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee. He attended school at The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where he played guard on the football team. He did not graduate from Vanderbilt because he was suspended his senior year for writing an article in the student newspaper critical of the school's administration. McGill served in the Marine Corps during World War I.

Career in journalism After the war, McGill got a job working for the sports department of the Nashville Banner and soon worked his way up to sports editor. In 1929, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia to become the assistant sports editor of The Atlanta Constitution. These articles earned him a spot as executive editor of the Constitution, where he used his daily front-page column to highlight the effects of segregation. He became friends with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, acting as a civil rights advisor and behind the scenes envoy to several African nations.

He was also a member of the Board of Jurors for the Peabody Awards, serving from 1945 to 1968.

Final years and legacy In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1959, McGill received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from dozens of universities and colleges, including Harvard, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Kenyon College in 1964, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A bomb threat was made at his funeral but no bomb was found.

His personal papers were donated to Emory University and are available at the Manuscripts and Rare Book Library (MARBL) at Emory University Library. Ralph McGill is mentioned by name by Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from Birmingham Jail as one of the "few enlightened white persons" to understand and sympathize with the civil rights movement at the time of the letter (April 1963). McGill's role in the campaign against segregation is depicted in Michael Braz's opera, A Scholar Under Siege, composed for the centenary of Georgia Southern University and premiered in 2007. A National Public Broadcasting prime time special, Dawn's Early Light: Ralph McGill and the Segregated South (1988), documented his impact. Burt Lancaster voiced McGill and prominent figures appear such as Julian Bond, Tom Brokaw, Jimmy Carter, John Lewis, Vernon Jordan, Herman Talmadge, Sander Vanocur, Andrew Young, and Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Harry Ashmore, Eugene Patterson and Claude Sitton.

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