Simeon Booker

Writing for Jet and Ebony for 53 years, longer than any other journalist, Washington bureau chief Simeon Booker was on the front lines of virtually every major event of the civil r4ights movement. In Shocking the Conscience, Booker tracks the freedom struggle not from the usual ignition points but starts with a massive voting rights rally in Mound Bayou, Mississippi in 1955. He vowed that lynchings would not be ignored beyond the black press, and his coverage of Emmett Till's death galvanized the movement. This is the story of the century that changed everything about journalism, politics, and more in America, as only the dean of the black press could tell it.Simeon Booker was the first full-time African American reporter for the Washington Post. "The dean of black journalists," he retired after  53 years at Jet and Ebony in 2007 at the age of 88. Booker was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2013. Shocking the Conscience was written with Carol McCabe Booker.Recorded On: Wednesday, July 24, 2013