Ralph McGill - (1898-1969)
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By Jennifer WatersI. Biography Ralph McGill was born in the year of 1898 and died in 1969. He was an
American journalist and publisher that received many awards. One of the awards was a Pulitzer Prize he won in 1959 for his editorials condemning the bombing of a synagogue in Atlanta and in a high school in
Tennessee. Another major award he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Many people wondered how he got this far with his career. He was born in Soddy. McGill
went to Vanderbilt University, played football and then he decided to try writing poetry. He first started off working a part time job at the Banner, which became permanent instead of temporary. In 1929, he left the
Banner to become assistant sports editor of the Atlanta Constitution. The death of his two daughters and also his wife's illness and management of problems at the newspaper further hindered his efforts.
After forty years of writing daily columns, he became editor and then publisher of the Constitution and gained international recognition. He would express his thoughts freely.
McGill once was expelled from Vanderbilt University for expressing those thoughts. The daily columns he wrote caught every reader's eye. The book he wrote which was called The South and the Southerners
was well sold. Ralph McGill was a very influential person to people all over the world. II. Works Cited Clowse, Barbara Barksdale."Ralph McGill." The Columbia Encyclopedia.
This essay was submitted by a student of Debbie Wooten, a teacher at Bacon County High School in Alma, Georgia.