[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18380]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO SIMEON BOOKER

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor Simeon Booker as he 
receives an honorary doctor of letters from Youngstown State University 
on December 15, 2013. Mr. Booker has devoted his life's work to 
chronicling the history of the civil rights movement in America.
  As an African-American college student in the 1940s and 1950s, Mr. 
Booker experienced discrimination firsthand at what was then Youngstown 
College. Refusing to accept the indignities he found there, he 
transferred to Virginia Union University where he continued to champion 
the rights of Black students.
  Early in his career, he was hired by his hometown newspaper, the 
Youngstown Vindicator, where he would write local columns focused on 
the city's African-American population and summaries for the local 
Black baseball leagues. He went on to work for the Cleveland Call and 
Post and was offered the esteemed Nieman Fellowship at Harvard 
University in the 1950s.
  Mr. Booker became the first Black reporter for the Washington Post in 
1952, and also wrote for Jet and Ebony magazines. Mr. Booker was 
witness to the rise of the great civil rights leaders of that time--
Martin Luther King, Jr., the Kennedy brothers, Whitney Young, and many 
others. He wrote about Martin Luther King's nonviolent movement for 
civil rights, and covered the 1963 March on Washington.
  Mr. Booker has received recognition from his peers, having been 
awarded both the Newspaper Guild Award and the Wilkie Award. As a 
journalist, he became the first African-American to win the National 
Press Club's Fourth Estate Award in 1982. He most recently authored 
``Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's account of the Civil Rights 
Movement,'' an account of a half-century of American history. Earlier 
this year, he was inducted into the National Association of Black 
Journalists Hall of Fame.
  I would like to honor Simeon Booker for his lifetime contributions to 
our country in the fields of journalism and civil rights and 
congratulate him on his recognition at Youngstown State University.

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