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Sun Herald - Biloxi, MS - October 10, 2006

Coast journalist Harkey remembered
Bravery stood out in rights era

By GEOFF PENDER
capitalbureau@aol.com
 

JACKSON - Civil rights newspaperman Ira Harkey Jr.'s bravery left its mark forever on journalism, fellow journalists said Monday.

"He showed courage at a time when it was terribly important for some journalistic voices to speak out," said pioneering civil rights journalist Bill Minor. "There were very few at that time. Ira was one of the few."

Harkey, 88, died Sunday afternoon in Kerrville, Texas, where he had retired after a long career in journalism and teaching journalism at Ohio State University, the University of Alaska and Columbia University. Harkey became editor and publisher of The Chronicle Star, predecessor of The Mississippi Press in Pascagoula, in 1949.

In 1963, Harkey won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials calling for the peaceful integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962.

For his brave stance on civil rights, Harkey's life was threatened, his newspaper was boycotted, crosses were burned in front of his home and office, and shots were fired into the newspaper office.

"Back in the 1960s, there were a lot of Klan types involved with the unions around Moss Point and Pascagoula," Minor said. "Ira had the guts to stand up to them... And he did it with very eloquent language. He was a very bright guy who was a journalistic craftsman as well as courageous."

George Thatcher, himself in the newspaper advertising business at another Coast publication at the time, said Harkey's Chronicle, around 1949 or '50, was the first Mississippi newspaper to use the titles Mr., Mrs. and Miss before the names of black people.

"It may sound like a very small thing these days, but that was a very great step for a newspaper back then," Thatcher said. "No Mississippi newspaper to my knowledge did so at that time."

S. Gale Denley, retired longtime journalism professor and media center director at the University of Mississippi, said he held Harkey "in high regard as a teacher, a citizen, a publisher and a friend." He said Harkey left his mark on journalism not only for his bravery but for the young journalists he taught.

Funeral services for Harkey will be held at 3 p.m. today at First United Methodist Church in Kerrville, and at 3 p.m. Friday at the chapel and the family tomb in the Lakelawn-Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.