Simeon Booker Jr. was a journalist who had he worked to appear in leading news publications for more than five decades.

Booker was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Simeon Saunders Booker and Roberta Waring Booker. At the age of five, his family relocated to Youngstown, where his father opened the YMCA for African Americans.

As a high school student, Booker found his passion for writing. Some of his literary work was published in the Baltimore Afro American, a prominent African American newspaper.

After graduating from high school in Youngstown, Booker enrolled at Youngstown College and later transferred to Virginia Union University in Richmond, VA. He graduated from the school with a degree in English in 1942.

Booker often published stories about the Negro League baseball games in Youngstown during his summer vacations. After graduation, he was offered a full-time job at the Afro-American. He later moved to Ohio and worked for the Cleveland Call and Post.

In 1952, Booker became the first black reporter for The Washington Post. He was best known for his reporting during the civil rights movement while working for Jet and Ebony magazines. His coverage of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi and the subsequent trial is one of the most noted pieces of journalism from the era.

Booker retired in 2007 at the age of 88, after serving as Jet’s Washington Bureau chief for 51 years.  Simeon Booker Jr., died on December 10, 2017, he was 99 years old.

sources:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/simeon-booker-emmett-till-and-dedication-to-thetruth_us_5a372ce2e4b02bd1c8c6081a