Ted Poston, "Dean of Black Journalists"
Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Ted Poston "Dean of Black Journalists". Theodore Roosevelt Poston was born on July 4, 1906, in Hopkinsville. He was a graduate of Attucks High School and Tennessee A&I State College. In 1936 he began freelance writing for the New York Post and was soon hired full-time. He retired in 1972 after spending a career there. He died in NYC in 1974 and is buried in Cave Spring Cemetery, Hopkinsville. He covered major civil rights stories of his era and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1949. Poston received numerous other awards, including the George Polk Award in Journalism for national reporting. His book of short stories, The Dark Side of Hopkinsville, was published in 1991. He was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2000. Dedicated May 20, 2017.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Born in Hopkinsville on the Fourth of July, 1906, Theodore Roosevelt "Ted" Poston became one of the most important African American journalists of the 20th century. After graduating from Attucks High School and Tennessee A&I, he joined the New York Post full-time in the 1930s and covered the major civil rights stories of his era, earning a Pulitzer nomination in 1949 and the George Polk Award. Known as the "Dean of Black Journalists," he later gathered his Kentucky boyhood into the short-story collection The Dark Side of Hopkinsville.
Why it matters
Poston broke barriers as a Black reporter in the mainstream press and chronicled the civil rights movement as it unfolded, shaping how the nation saw the struggle for equality.
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