29 Facts About Carl Rowan

Carl Thomas Rowan was a prominent American journalist, author and government official who published columns syndicated across the US and was at one point the highest ranking African American in the United States government.

Carl Rowan was born in Ravenscroft, Tennessee, the son of Johnnie, a cook and cleaner, and Thomas Rowan, who stacked lumber.

Carl Rowan was raised in McMinnville, Tennessee, during the Great Depression.

Carl Rowan graduated from Bernard High School in 1942 as class president and valedictorian.

Carl Rowan studied at Tennessee State University and Washburn University.

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Carl Rowan was one of the first African Americans to serve as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy.

Carl Rowan was graduated from Oberlin College and was awarded a master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota.

Carl Rowan began his career in journalism writing for the African-American newspapers Minneapolis Spokesman and St Paul Recorder.

Carl Rowan went on to be a copywriter for The Minneapolis Tribune, and later became a staff writer, reporting extensively on the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1960, Carl Rowan was denied membership to a club on the grounds that it was racially segregated; this subsequently inspired Joe Glazer to write the song "I Belong to a Private Club".

In 1961, Rowan was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by President John F Kennedy.

In 1964, Rowan was appointed director of the United States Information Agency by President Lyndon B Johnson.

In serving as director of the USIA, Carl Rowan became the first African American to hold a seat on the National Security Council and the highest level African American in the United States government.

Carl Rowan's name appeared on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

Carl Rowan was a 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his commentaries.

Carl Rowan is the only journalist in history to win the Sigma Delta Chi medallion for journalistic excellence in three successive years.

Carl Rowan was a well known and highly decorated journalist.

Carl Rowan's columns were published in more than one hundred newspapers across the United States.

Carl Rowan died in Washington on Sept 23,2000, of heart and kidney ailments in the intensive care unit at Washington Hospital Center.

Carl Rowan was survived by his wife, Vivien, and the three children they shared: two sons and one daughter.

Carl Rowan's daughter, Barbara Rowan Jones, is a formal journalist like her father.

Carl Rowan founded Project Excellence to combat negative peer pressure felt by black students and to reward students who rose above stereotypes and negative peer influence and excelled academically.

Carl Rowan gained public notoriety on June 14,1988, when he shot an unarmed teenage trespasser, Ben Smith.

Carl Rowan says he aimed at the intruder's feet but hit him in the wrist when the man lunged forward.

Carl Rowan just shot me and closed the door and went back hiding in his house.

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Carl Rowan was charged for firing a gun that he did not legally own.

Carl Rowan said the pistol he used was exempt from the District's handgun prohibition law because it belonged to his older son, a former FBI agent.

Carl Rowan was accused of hypocrisy, since Rowan was a strict gun control advocate.

Carl Rowan was tried but the jury was deadlocked; the judge declared a mistrial and he was never retried.