Lerone Bennett, Jr.
Linda Zabors
Lerone Bennett, Jr. was an author and social historian with a specialty in race relations and civil rights. He served for many years as the Executive Editor of Ebony Magazine; he began his career with Johnson Publishing as the City Editor of JET Magazine. His career in journalism began at the age of twelve at the black-owned newspaper The Mississippi Enterprise. After college he worked for the Atlanta Daily World.
His first book was Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America 1619-1962. In 1978 he received the American Academy Arts and Letters, Literature Award. In 1954 he published an article about the children of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings; which was verified decades later using DNA evidence.
He was a visiting professor at Northwestern University. Lerone graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1949, where he was classmates with Martin Luther King, Jr. Bennett interviewed King about the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, and in 1964 wrote What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King.
Veteran: Army. Korean War
Alumnus:
Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia
Lanier High School
Honorary Lerone Bennett, Jr. Parkway
South Chicago Beach Drive from East 48th Street to East 49th Street
Approved: February 2022
Ward: 4
Alderman: King
Neighborhood: Kenwood
b. October 17, 1928. Mississippi
d. February 14, 2018. age 89. Chicago
Source
https://aaregistry.org/story/lerone-bennett-jr-a-classical-author/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lerone_Bennett_Jr.
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