W. Horace Carter

Walter Horace Carter (January 20, 1921 – September 16, 2009) was an American newspaper publisher in Tabor City, North Carolina, whose paper won a 1953 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and his editorials which opposed them.

Early life and education Carter was born on January 20, 1921, in Albemarle, North Carolina. After graduating from high school, the first in his family to do so, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, he worked as editor of the student paper. He served in the United States Navy during World War II, where he saw action in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Theater of Operations.

Carter's reporting led to the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the activities of the local Klan, leading to the convictions on both federal and state charges of many of its members, including Grand Dragon, Thomas Hamilton. Along with Willard Cole's Whiteville News Reporter, Carter's Tabor City Tribune won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service citing "their successful campaign against the Ku Klux Klan, waged on their own doorstep at the risk of economic loss and personal danger, culminating in the conviction of over one hundred Klansmen and an end to terrorism in their communities." (the Library of Congress catalogs 12 books published 1980 to 2001), Carter returned to Tabor City and returned to The Tribune.