birth_date: 1927-07-27 00:00:00
avg_rating: 3.78
name: John Seigenthaler
about: John Seigenthaler’s journalistic and political legacy includes four decades as a reporter, editor and publisher at the Nashville Tennessean and a concurrent nine years as the founding editorial director of USA Today. Two times during his newspaper tenure, he took leaves of absence to serve as an aide to Robert F. Kennedy, who was his close friend.Upon retiring from the two newspapers in 1991, Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center, the nation’s foremost institution devoted to education, debate and dialogue about free expression, and remains intimately involved with its programs and forums.In 1960, he took a leave from the Tennessean to work with Robert Kennedy on his brother’s presidential campaign, later becoming Robert Kennedy’s John Seigenthaler’s journalistic and political legacy includes four decades as a reporter, editor and publisher at the Nashville Tennessean and a concurrent nine years as the founding editorial director of USA Today. Two times during his newspaper tenure, he took leaves of absence to serve as an aide to Robert F. Kennedy, who was his close friend.Upon retiring from the two newspapers in 1991, Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center, the nation’s foremost institution devoted to education, debate and dialogue about free expression, and remains intimately involved with its programs and forums.In 1960, he took a leave from the Tennessean to work with Robert Kennedy on his brother’s presidential campaign, later becoming Robert Kennedy’s administrative assistant in the Kennedy Justice Department. When authorities in the Deep South signaled they were going to put up massive resistance to the civil rights protests of the Freedom Riders, the president and his attorney general sent Seigenthaler to Alabama as their personal representative to try to defuse the situation.On May 20, 1961, Seigenthaler met the Riders’ bus as it reached Montgomery’s bus station. So did hundreds of white rioters who, with police absent from the scene, set upon the Riders. Seigenthaler was beaten as he tried to protect a young Freedom Rider, and he was left unconscious on the pavement for more than 20 minutes before police officers finally took him to the hospital.The late historian David Halberstam, who was a reporter with the Tennessean at the time, wrote that Seigenthaler’s beating was a pivotal moment for Robert Kennedy, for whom politics was personal. The incident marked the beginning of RFK's strong support for civil rights. ...more
death_date: 2014-07-11 00:00:00