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WRAL-TV (Raleigh, NC) is reporting that veteran journalist and National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) founder Chuck Stone has died. According to Stone’s daughter Allegra, Stone died at an assisted-living facility in Chapel Hill where he was a journalism professor who taught censorship and magazine writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 14 years. He retired from that position in 2005. Stone, a Tuskegee Airman in World War II, founded NABJ along with 43 other members in Washington, D.C. in 1975.
The author writes:
“…Stone was a writer and editor at influential black publications in New York, Washington and Chicago through the early 1960s, using his writing to urge the Kennedy administration to advance the cause of civil rights. Subsequently, he served as an adviser to U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell of New York.
His reputation grew after he was hired as the first black columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, where he worked as a columnist and editor from 1972 to 1991. He was known for being outspoken on discrimination, police brutality and racism.”
Throughout his life, Stone received six honorary doctorates and multiple honors, including the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award from The Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, the National Association of Black Journalists’ Lifetime Achievement Award and The Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Free Spirit Award. He was NABJ’s first president.
In addition to Allegra Stone, Stone is survived by children Krishna Stone and Charles S. Stone III; grandchild Parade Stone and sisters Madalene Seymour and Irene Gordy. He was 89.
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