page_title: Carl Rowan
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Carl Rowan / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Journalist Carl Rowan speaking at a National Security meeting on Vietnam in the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 1965.
context_page_description: Carl Thomas Rowan was a prominent American journalist, author and government official who published columns syndicated across the U.S. and was at one point the highest ranking African American in the United States government.
context_section_description: Carl Rowan was born in Ravenscroft, Tennessee, the son of Johnnie, a cook and cleaner, and Thomas Rowan, who stacked lumber. He was raised in McMinnville, Tennessee during the Great Depression. Rowan was determined to get a good education. He graduated from Bernard High School in 1942 as class president and valedictorian. After graduating high school, Rowan worked cleaning porches at a tuberculosis hospital in order to attend Tennessee State College in Nashville. He studied at Tennessee State University (1942–43) and Washburn University (1943–44). He was one of the first African Americans to serve as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy. Rowan was also a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. He was graduated from Oberlin College (1947) and was awarded a master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota (1948). He began his career in journalism writing for the African-American newspapers Minneapolis Spokesman and St. Paul Recorder (now the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder). He went on to be a copywriter for The Minneapolis Tribune (1948–50), and later became a staff writer (1950–61), reporting extensively on the Civil Rights Movement.
  In 1960, Rowan was denied membership to a club on the grounds that it was racially segregated; this subsequently inspired Joe Glazer to write the song "I Belong to a Private Club".
  In a 1964 interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book Who Speaks for the Negro?, Rowan reflected on his reporting of the civil rights movement, as well as his opinions on the distinctions between the North and the South, prejudices and persecution, and African Americans' political power.
  In 1961, Rowan was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by President John F. Kennedy. The following year, he served as a delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rowan became the U.S. Ambassador to Finland in 1963. In 1964, Rowan was appointed director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In serving as director of the USIA, Rowan became the first African American to hold a seat on the National Security Council and the highest level African American in the United States government.
  From 1966 to 1998, Rowan wrote a syndicated column for the Chicago Sun-Times and, from 1967 to 1996, was a panelist on a television program Agronsky & Company, later called Inside Washington; Rowan was a fair opponent whose arguments were persuasive and well-balanced - he always came across as the voice of reason.
  His name appeared on the master list of Nixon political opponents. Rowan was a 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his commentaries. He is the only journalist in history to win the Sigma Delta Chi medallion for journalistic excellence in three successive years.
  Carl Rowan was a well known and highly decorated journalist. His columns were published in more than one hundred newspapers across the United States. In 1968 he received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. In 1997, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.
  Thurgood Marshall's only interview while serving on the Supreme Court of the United States was for Carl Rowan's 1988 documentary. The National Press Club gave Rowan its 1999 Fourth Estate Award for lifetime achievement. On January 9, 2001, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dedicated the press briefing room at the State Department as the Carl T. Rowan Briefing room.
  Rowan died in Washington on Sept. 23, 2000, of heart and kidney ailments in the intensive care unit at Washington Hospital Center. Rowan was 75 and had diabetes prior to his death. 
  Rowan was survived by his wife, Vivien, and the three children they shared: two sons and one daughter. Rowan’s two sons are Carl Jr., a lawyer, and Jeffrey, a clinical psychologist. His daughter, Barbara Rowan Jones, is a formal journalist like her father. Carl Rowan also is survived by four grandchildren.
caption: Rowan speaking at a National Security meeting on Vietnam in the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 1965
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