When I heard that Carl Rowan had died, I realized that it's been at least twenty years since I've read one of his columns. Years ago, they were a regular part of my media diet.
It began when I was in junior high. Every morning, I waited impatiently for the comics page of the Nashville Tennessean. My father was always up early enough to put on a pot of coffee, stroll down to the end of the driveway, and retrieve the paper. Then he sat and sipped slow-dripped coffee and chicory, dark and thick like the swamp water of his beloved Louisiana, while plodding deliberately through the funnies. They were his favorite section too.
If I hung around, there was a small window of opportunity for me to get my daily dose of Blondie, Miss Peach, and Bringing Up Father before my mother appropriated that section so she could work the crossword puzzle. While I lingered, I learned to enjoy Creole coffee (with a healthy dose of hot milk and sugar) and the only other part of the daily paper with cartoons -- the editorial pages. Although I didn't understand the significance of the governor wearing a sports coat decorated with dollar signs, I enjoyed the absurd caricatures. I wish I were still that naïve. To kill time I began to read the letters to the editor, then the articles. I never missed Art Buchwald, because he made me laugh, or Carl Rowan, because he made me mad.
Rowan, who was born in rural middle Tennessee, was an anomaly. His picture probably drew me to his column first. Here was a dignified, intelligent black man in a prominent place. That in itself was unusual in an era when media images of African Americans were negative and stereotypical, most often dealing with crime, poverty, race riots, and other unsettling social behaviors. Yet here was a black man who wrote so eloquently and passionately that you couldn't ignore what he had to say, even if you were in total denial that the conditions he protested existed. I was captivated by what he wrote, but I was fascinated that I enjoyed reading opinions with which I disagreed. Although I knew nothing about cognitive dissonance, I realized that something was going on.
Carl Rowan outgrew segregation and poverty to earn a master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota. Along the way he attended Tennessee State, was one of the first blacks to qualify for officer's training in the US Navy, and graduated from Oberlin College. In the 1950's, he wrote for the Minneapolis Tribune and won awards for his reporting on race conditions in the Deep South. In the 60's, he got involved in government, as Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador to Finland, and Director of the US Information Agency. Rowan also began to write his syndicated column and to appear often on television public affairs shows.
During the last thirty years of his life, he lived in Washington and looked on with despair at the blighted neighborhoods where African Americans tried to raise families. To Rowan, guns and drugs were the two greatest evils. He even suggested banning the sale of tobacco, the first drug of choice for most kids. He was staunchly pro government intervention to break the poverty cycle, and just as adamantly opposed to the death penalty. In 1987, he organized Project Excellence, a college scholarship program for high-achieving African American students in the DC area. So far, it has provided almost $80 million to support more than 3000 students.
There are many reasons to remember Carl Rowan. For me, the most important one is that he motivated me to think for myself.