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William Austin Emerson, Jr
| William Austin Emerson, Jr | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 28 February 1923 Charlotte, North Carolina |
| Died | 25 August 2009 Atlanta, Georgia |
| Nativity | United States |
| Religion | Protestant |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch |  United States Army |
| ASN | 34825456 |
| Rank | Sergeant |
| Camp Ritchie | Class 20 (19 June – 16 August 1944) |
| Section | 6A |
| Enlisted | Ft Mcpherson Atlanta, Georgia |
{{Needs source}}, or explain disagreements on talk. Baseline import notes: About the data.
William Austin "Bill" Emerson Jr. (28 February 1923 – 25 August 2009) was an American journalist and Ritchie Boy who trained at Camp Ritchie in Class 20, covered the civil rights movement as NewsweekTemplate:'s first bureau chief for the South, and was later editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post.
Biography[edit | edit source]
William Austin "Bill" Emerson Jr. was born on 28 February 1923 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and moved with his family to Atlanta, where he attended Boys High School and North Fulton High School. He studied for two years at Davidson College.
Emerson enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort McPherson, Atlanta, and trained, in part, at Camp Ritchie among the Ritchie Boys with Class 20, holding the rank of sergeant. During the war he served in the China Burma India Theater.
After his military service Emerson attended Harvard University and then joined Collier's magazine in New York City. In 1953, the year before the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Newsweek named him its first bureau chief responsible for covering the South. He witnessed the "years of resistance and violence" that followed school desegregation, covering integration battles in cities such as New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee—including a mother trying to take her child to school through a crowd that spat and yelled at them—as well as Ku Klux Klan cross burnings in Florida and the Montgomery bus boycott that began in 1955 and brought Martin Luther King Jr. to the fore. Hoping to enlist William Faulkner for a cover story, he ignored a warning sign at the author's Mississippi home, was met first by dogs and then by Faulkner, who "calmly told someone to get his shotgun."
In September 1963 the Curtis Publishing Company promoted Emerson from assistant managing editor to executive editor of The Saturday Evening Post. A few months later he reworked the issue covering the assassination of John F. Kennedy to include recollections by Dwight D. Eisenhower and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and a Norman Rockwell cover portrait of Kennedy, all completed in time for publication. As part of the New Journalism of the 1960s he ran articles by nontraditional authors such as James Meredith, who wrote about being the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. Emerson became editor-in-chief in 1965 and remained until the magazine closed with its 8 February 1969 issue. After the closure was announced he thanked the staff and promised "to stay here and see that everyone finds a job," and at a March 1969 postmortem he insisted the Post "was a damn good vehicle for advertising," expressing what The New York Times called "understandable bitterness" in wishing "that all the one-eyed critics will lose their other eye."
Emerson later taught journalism at the University of South Carolina. He married Lucy Kiser, who died in 2005. Emerson died after a stroke at his home in Atlanta on 25 August 2009, at the age of 86.
Research notes[edit | edit source]
- Also Class 20 JapOB
- OB 489T
Gallery[edit | edit source]
After you are autoconfirmed, upload a photo and add [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|caption]] here, or set |photo=Example.jpg in the infobox.
Technical record[edit | edit source]
| Field | Imported value |
|---|---|
| Approx Age at Death | 86 |
| Nara ASN | 34825456 |
| Nara Name | EMERSON WILLIAM A JR |
| Nara State | 43 |
| Nara County | 121 |
| Nara POE | 4344 |
| Nara DOE | 170743 |
| Nara Grade Alpha | PVT |
| Nara Grade Code | 8 |
| Nara Branch Alpha | NO |
| Nara Branch Code | 2 |
| Branch | No branch assignment |
| Nara Term or Enlistment | 5 |
| Term of enlistment | Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law |
| Defer. Date | 0 |
| Nara Source | 0 |
| Nara Nativity | 46 |
| Nativity.1 | NORTH CAROLINA |
| Nara Year of Birth | 23 |
| Nara Race | 1 |
| Nara Race Description | White citizen |
| Nara Education | 6 |
| Nara Civilian Occupation | 787 |
| Nara Marital Status | 6 |
| Nara Height (inches) | 0 |
| Nara Weight (lbs) | 0 |
| Class_ASN | 34825456 |
| Class_Name | EMERSON, William |
| match_method | asn_exact_name_exact |
| row_source | both |
Sources[edit | edit source]
- Wikipedia: William Emerson (journalist)
- Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. (The Ritchie History Museum), Classes 1–31 roster data
- Dan Gross research spreadsheets, including original Excel timeline/roster work, combined with other research and records
- NARA World War II Army enlistment records (where a NARA ASN is present)
- 1940 U.S. Census (where a census match is present)