Ted Poston
Ted Poston was an influential African American journalist born on July 4, 1906, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. The son of educators, Poston began his journalism career at the young age of fifteen, working for his family’s newspaper. He graduated from Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College in 1928 and went on to contribute to significant political campaigns and major publications, including a notable tenure at the Amsterdam News. Poston's journalistic career was marked by courage and commitment, highlighted by his undercover reporting during racially charged events such as the Scottsboro Boys retrial. He became one of the first African Americans to hold a full-time position at a major white-owned newspaper, the New York Post, where he worked for over three decades. Poston’s contributions to journalism were recognized with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and several prestigious awards throughout his career. He passed away in January 1974, leaving behind a legacy of unwavering pursuit of truth in the face of adversity. His life reflects the challenges and triumphs experienced by African American journalists during a time of significant racial tension in the United States.
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Subject Terms
Ted Poston
- Born: July 4, 1906
- Birthplace: Hopkinsville, Kentucky
- Died: January 11, 1974
- Place of death: Brooklyn, New York
Biography
Ted Poston, the youngest of eight children, was born on July 4, 1906, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to Ephraim and Mollie Cox Poston. Both parents were educators and published a local weekly newspaper, the Courier, until it was forced out of town because of its perceived radical content. His mother died when he was ten. Poston began his career in journalism at fifteen working as a copy clerk for the family. He attended the Booker T. Washington Colored Grammar School. Tall and thin, he went on to become a guard for the Crispus Attucks High School basketball team, graduating in 1924.
In 1928, Poston earned an A.B. from Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College (later Tennessee State University) and then attended New York University. He became a writer for the Alfred E. Smith presidential campaign in 1928, earning $150 a week, a salary that was unequaled until after World War II. When the Democrats lost, he worked as a dining car waiter for the Pennsylvania Railroad and a reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier.
From 1929 to 1934, Poston was first a reporter for the Amsterdam News in New York City and then city editor. In 1936, he was fired as punishment for his part in organizing an earlier successful strike for unionization. He applied for a job with the Post and was hired after meeting the seemingly impossible challenge of producing a story worthy to run on the front page by the next morning. He stayed with the paper for the next thirty-five years, except for a leave of absence from 1940 to 1945, when he held various wartime government positions in Washington, D.C. One of these was as head of the Negro News Desk for the Office of War Information, where he worked toward integrating the defense industry.
Poston enjoyed an easy relationship with people from all walks of life. He spoke and wrote fluidly, with an eye toward the dramatic. As a newspaper correspondent, he took on the hard tasks that required daring and a quick mind. In 1933, for example, he traveled incognito to Decatur, Alabama, to cover the retrial of the Scottsboro Boys, two African Americans who had been wrongly accused of raping white women. The courthouse was segregated, with blacks relegated to the balcony. Poston, posing as a hardscrabble minister in a shabby jacket, greasy hat, and torn pants, was almost detected when mailing his copy to the editor by some white toughs who suspected he might be spreading lies in Yankee papers. During another Southern assignment, his editor asked him to call nightly so he’d know he was alive. He once was chased out of town by a white gang and in 1959 narrowly missed a bullet fired through the window of a home. None of these incidents dissuaded him from his pursuit of truth.
Poston was one of the first African Americans to work full time for a white-owned and white-operated newspaper in a big city. In 1949, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In 1950, he received three top awards for three different features, earning additional awards in 1951 and 1972.
Poston died after a long illness in January of 1974. His third wife, Ersa Hines, whom he had married in 1957, reported that he was a man who “harbored many feelings of inferiority [never thinking that he] had fulfilled his potential.”