Ted Poston

Theodore Roosevelt Augustus Major Poston (July 4, 1906 – January 11, 1974) was an American journalist and author. He was among the first African-American journalists to work on a mainstream white-owned newspaper, the New York Post. Poston is often referred to as the "Dean of Black Journalists".

Early life

Poston was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. His mother, Mollie Cox, died when he was ten, and his father, Ephraim Poston, taught the Kentucky State Industrial College for Negroes (now Kentucky State University). As a result, he was raised mostly by his elder siblings. As a teenager, Poston started writing for the Hopkinsville Contender, his family's newspaper.

In 1928, he graduated from Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College (now Tennessee State University) and moved to New York. His book of short stories was published posthumously in 1991 as The Dark Side of Hopkinsville.

Personal life Poston was married three times. His first wife was Miriam Rivers (m. 1935–1940). In 1941, while working in Washington, he married Marie Byrd Tancil, a staffer for Robert C. Weaver. The couple divorced in 1956.

Poston married Ersa Hines Clinton, who was also from Kentucky, in 1957. She was the Area Director for the New York State Division of Youth, and later the confidential assistant to New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and she became the New York State Civil Service Commissioner during her marriage to Poston. They remained married until Poston died in 1974, although they were separated.

Poston was friends with poet Langston Hughes, and traveled to the Soviet Union with him in 1932, to appear in an anti-segregation film. He also lived next door to his friend civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall for many years. 1990 National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame inductee