Eugene Patterson: Ralph's been waiting for you

Eugene Patterson died this past weekend.

That may or may not be of any significance to you. Perhaps it should be.

Eugene Patterson outlived many of his journalism counterparts or, if you prefer, his contemporaries in the business.

He was 89 when he died on Jan. 12.

Mr. Patterson was the editor of the Atlanta Constitution and the St. Petersburg Times. The latter I once considered among the best newspapers in the country. (Maybe it still is.)

In fact, I thought so much of the St. Pete Times that I "borrowed" its Page 1 look for a newspaper redesign in 2002. This was two years after I'd taken a copy editing test for a potential job with the SP Times. All young editors should be so humbled.

Gene Patterson was born in 1923 in Georgia and grew up on a farm. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1943 and served in the Army in Europe during World War II with Gen. George Patton's Third Army.

The Poynter Institute (www.Poynter.org) this week published several remembrances of Mr. Patterson by former colleagues.

Eugene Roberts, former executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, said: "I think he was one of the most important ingredients during the Civil Rights era, in keeping the South somewhat in balance.

"Without people like Gene Patterson, when he was editor of the Atlanta Constitution and his colleague Ralph McGill, I think the resistance in the South could have gotten even more out of hand than it was. Patterson was a confident voice for humanity and sanity during a very tense era in the South. He had this almost incredible magic within him. His piece about the little girls who were killed in the Birmingham church bombing is probably, I would say, one of the great moments in American commentary."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reprinted Mr. Patterson's "A Flower for the Graves" after his death. You can read it online at: www.ajc.com/news/news/a-flower-for-the-graves/nTt33/ or click on the link at the conclusion of this column.

When I read Mr. Roberts' comments about Gene Patterson and Ralph McGill, I couldn't help but take a look at my own files.

Ralph Emerson McGill, who worked with Mr. Patterson in the segregated South died on Feb. 3, 1969. He was best known as the anti-segregationist editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution. He also won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1959.

Two years ago, I wrote about Ralph McGill in The Highland County Press.

Any time a newspaper publisher dares to venture into potentially volatile waters, he can expect a little push-back. And it’s always a safe bet that the more local the paper, the more immediate the resistance. Whether they realize it or not, most metropolitan newspaper publishers are well shielded from direct personal criticism. Trust me, it’s a little different in the rural media markets.

It is at times like these that I often reflect on longtime Georgia newspaperman Ralph McGill, who was a Southern liberal in a conservative era. McGill challenged Southern segregation even before Brown v. Board of Education.

When people asked why he dared write about such controversial and often volatile topics, he would ask (I’m paraphrasing from a not-so-sharp memory): “Do I love my community more because I write about its beautiful sunsets, or do I love my community more when I try to point out its problems in hopes of necessary reform?”

Eight years after Ralph McGill won his Pulitzer, Eugene Patterson won the award.

As reported by The Associated Press' Mitch Stacy this week, Mr. Patterson's famous column of Sept, 16, 1963, about the Birmingham, Ala., church bombing that killed four girls — "A Flower for the Graves" — was considered so moving that he was asked by Walter Cronkite to read it nationally on the "CBS Evening News."

The column includes this passage:

A Negro mother wept in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist Church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe, from the foot of her dead child.

We hold that shoe with her.

Every one of us in the white South holds that small shoe in his hand. ... We who go on electing politicians who heat the kettles of hate. ... (The church bomber) feels right now that he has been a hero.

He is only guilty of murder.

He thinks he has pleased us.

We of the white South who know better are the ones who must take a harsher judgment.

A year after winning the 1967 Pulitzer, Eugene Patterson joined The Washington Post as its managing editor. He was among the editors who decided to publish the Pentagon Papers. Later, he taught at Duke University.

Mallary Jean Tenore, managing editor of The Poynter Institute's website at www.Poynter.org, quotes Phil Bennett, the Eugene C. Patterson Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University:

"Gene showed in his own work and the volumes of work he inspired that honesty, courage, humility and humanity are at the heart of great journalism. He set an example of defying convention, and sometimes his audience, by telling the truth. He was also a champion, as an editor, teacher and writer, of the poetry and literary power of newspaper stories. He was proof that journalism can be a force for good in the world."

Gene Patterson and Ralph McGill can have a drink now and maybe exchange edits on a much more spiritual text. (Jeremiah's earlier works might be under a bit more editorial scrutiny now!)

One thing's certain: The South and the nation were better places because of their humanity toward their fellow man as exemplified by Gene Patterson and Ralph McGill. Newspapers were better, too. A lot better.

Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.