I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 812 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Simeon Booker in recognition 
of his achievements in the field of journalism, including reporting during 
the Civil Rights movement, as well as social and political commentary. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 1, 2017 
Mr. RYAN of Ohio (for himself, Mr. JOYCE of Ohio, Ms. FUDGE, Mrs. 
BEATTY, Ms. KAPTUR, Ms. NORTON, Mr. CUMMINGS, Mr. COHEN, Ms. 
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Mr. 
RICHMOND, Mr. CONYERS, Ms. MOORE, Mr. CLAY, and Mr. SOTO) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Finan-
cial Services 
A BILL 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Simeon Booker 
in recognition of his achievements in the field of jour-
nalism, including reporting during the Civil Rights move-
ment, as well as social and political commentary. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Simeon Saunders Booker, Jr., was born on 
August 27, 1918, in Baltimore, Maryland, to 
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Reberta Waring and Simeon Saunders Booker, Sr., 
a YMCA director and minister. 
(2) After his family moved to Youngstown, 
Ohio, Booker became interested in journalism. 
(3) Booker promoted and wrote about Negro 
League baseball teams in Youngstown’s local news-
paper, The Vindicator. 
(4) In 1945, he moved back to Ohio to work for 
the Call and Post, where he became the first Afri-
can-American reporter to win a Newspaper Guild 
Award for his series on Cleveland, Ohio, slum hous-
ing, and a Willkie Award for reporting on racial in-
equities in the public schools. 
(5) In 1950, Booker was the recipient of the 
Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University to 
study journalism and develop his talent as a re-
porter. 
(6) After leaving Harvard in 1951, Booker be-
came the first full-time African-American reporter at 
The Washington Post. 
(7) In 1955, he helped to advance the civil 
rights movement with his famous coverage of the 
Emmett Till murder and trial, turning a common 
occurrence in the Deep South into a national trag-
edy that united the Black community. 
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(8) He remained at the forefront of the civil 
rights movement, reporting on the 1957 integration 
of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. 
(9) In 1961, he rode with the Congress on Ra-
cial Equality (CORE) Freedom Riders through the 
Deep South. 
(10) 
When 
the 
Freedom 
Riders 
were 
firebombed and beaten in Anniston, Alabama, in a 
Ku Klux Klan ambush, Booker arranged for their 
rescue by calling U.S. Attorney General Robert F. 
Kennedy. 
(11) In two wartime tours of Vietnam in the 
1960s, he interviewed Black troops on the front 
lines, and took enemy fire in a helicopter with 
United States Army General William Westmoreland 
for reports for Jet and Ebony magazines. 
(12) He has chronicled the most tumultuous pe-
riod in American history in two highly acclaimed 
books, Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Ac-
count of the Civil Rights Movement (University 
Press of Mississippi, 2013), and Black Man’s Amer-
ica (Prentice Hall, 1964). 
(13) Often called the ‘‘dean of the black press’’, 
as chief of Ebony and Jet magazines’ Washington 
bureau, he interviewed presidents, senators and rep-
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resentatives, members of the judiciary, cabinet offi-
cers, foreign ambassadors, and other important 
members of the Washington community. His col-
umn, ‘‘Ticker Tape U.S.A.’’ became a must-read for 
politicians and government officials. 
(14) He covered every Presidential election 
since the Eisenhower Administration in his fifty- 
three years with Johnson Publishing until he retired 
in 2007. 
(15) In 1982, Booker received one of the most 
prestigious awards in journalism, the National Press 
Club’s Fourth Estate Award. 
(16) His honors and awards include: Nieman 
Fellowship, Harvard University 1950; elected presi-
dent of the Capitol Press Club, 1956; Fourth Estate 
Award, National Press Club, 1982; inducted into 
Hall of Fame, Washington Chapter of Sigma Delta 
Chi, and Hall of Fame of Washington, DC, 1984; 
Master Communicators Award, National Black 
Media Coalition, 1998; Phoenix Award, Congres-
sional Black Caucus Foundation, 2010; inducted 
into Hall of Fame, National Association of Black 
Journalists, 2013. 
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