- Born
- Died
- Birth nameSimeon Saunders Booker Jr.
- Simeon Booker was born on August 27, 1918 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He was married to Carol McCabe and Thelma Cunningham. He died on December 10, 2017 in Solomons, Maryland, USA.
- SpousesCarol McCabe(1973 - December 10, 2017) (his death, 1 child)Thelma Cunningham (divorced, 3 children)
- He grew up in Baltimore and Youngstown, Ohio, and had never been in the Deep South before going to Mississippi to cover the trial of Emmett Till's accused killers.
- He was the Washington DC bureau chief of Jet and Ebony magazines for five decades. He was the first full-time black reporter for the Washington Post before writing for Jet and Ebony. He covered 10 presidents, and traveled to southeast Asia to report on the Vietnam War.
- He received an English degree from Virginia Union University, a historically black school in Richmond. He began his career at the Baltimore Afro-American and later joined the Cleveland Call and Post.
- He reported on the civil rights struggle in the South. For safety, he sometimes posed as a minister, or wore overalls to look like a sharecropper.
- I wanted to fight segregation on the front lines. I wanted to dedicate my writing skills to the cause. Segregation was beating down my people. I volunteered for every assignment and suggested more. I stayed on the road, covering civil rights day and night. The names, the places and the events became history.
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