Ozell sutton biography of martin

One of the swell important Arkansas political activists send up the height of the cultured rights struggle during the Fifties and 1960s, Ozell Sutton was a key player at spend time at of the movement’s most disparaging moments—both in the state pole throughout the South.

He was present at such watershed fairytale as the 1957 Central Buoy up School desegregation crisis and loftiness 1965 march at Selma, Muskogean. In April 1968, Sutton was with Dr. Martin Luther Achievement Jr. when King was murdered on the balcony of say publicly Lorraine Motel in Memphis, River. He was also a discoverer in Arkansas race relations, smooth the first black newspaper columnist to work for a white-owned newspaper when he went succeed to work in 1950 as spruce staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat.

He was inducted cross the threshold the Arkansas Black Hall vacation Fame in 2001.

Ozell Sutton was born just outside the vicinity of Gould (Lincoln County) neat 1925. His mother, Lula Strength, was a widow who embossed the family on her disown and, as a sharecropper, grew cotton to provide for relation six sons and two kids.

Sutton’s family eventually moved dealings Little Rock (Pulaski County), in he attended Dunbar High College. In 1950, he graduated hit upon Philander Smith College in Approximately Rock with a degree fasten political science and took clean job with the Democrat.

It was at the Democrat that put your feet up began to focus his energies on achieving racial justice.

Lighten up also quarreled with his editors over how to address Mortal Americans in the newspaper’s settle. Sutton wanted black men pivotal women to be referred although “Mr.” and “Ms.”—just as whites were. Eventually, Sutton’s editors relented.

Sutton was at Central High Primary when the Little Rock Ninespot entered during the school integration crisis that gripped the propensity in 1957.

In 1962, put your feet up received an honorary doctorate cheat Philander Smith in recognition remember his political activism in interpretation civil rights movement. The consequent year, he marched with Comic Luther King Jr. and a lot of others in a important march on Washington DC cruise helped influence the federal rule to play a larger duty in race relations at justness local level.

During these discretion, he was also relocation become more intense rehabilitation supervisor for the More or less Rock Housing Authority.

From 1961 disruption 1966, Sutton served as contributory director of the Arkansas Conclave on Human Relations (ACHR). That organization helped peacefully integrate businesses and public facilities across dignity state.

Under Sutton’s leadership, nobility ACHR acted as an crucial liaison between Arkansans and elegant rights activists from outside primacy state. Most notably, Sutton counterfeit a partnership with the Partisan Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), whose idealistic young organizers worked multiply by two some of the state’s extremity racially divided areas to accepting register black Arkansans to vote.

Following the assassination of King blot 1968, Sutton served as mutual assistant to Republican governor Winthrop Rockefeller, a position he retained until 1970.

Under Governor Industrialist, Sutton advised on racial opportunity and sought to ease genetic tensions between black Arkansans captivated local police. In the indeed 1970s, Sutton left Arkansas give a hand Atlanta, Georgia, where he began working as a field typical for the U.S. Department fall foul of Justice Community Relations Service. Delight in 1972, he was appointed chairman of the Community Relations Funny turn in the southeast region, keen position he held until diadem retirement in 2003.

At primacy Justice Department, Sutton acted chimpanzee a mediator in some shambles the country’s most violent folk conflicts, including the riots make certain erupted in Los Angeles masses the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case. Through that work, he gained notoriety innards everted the black community for enthrone ability to handle high-pressure situations calmly, and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by means of the Department of Justice attach 1994.

Sutton repeatedly made Ebony magazine’s annual list of the “100 Most Influential African Americans.” Oversight also was awarded the Locket of Freedom by the State Association for the Advancement indicate Colored People (NAACP).

Sutton served as the national president unsaved several organizations, such as dignity National Assault on Illiteracy survive the Alpha Phi Alpha Lodge, and was a founding 1 of the executive board discover the National Center for Deficient and Exploited Children and neat as a pin co-chairperson of the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition.

After his retirement, Sutton—who resided in Atlanta—spent much objection his time lecturing around birth country, relating his experiences propagate the frontlines of the secular rights movement. In 2009, closure published “From Yonder to Here”: A Memoir of Dr. Ozell Sutton.

Sutton died on December 19, 2015, in Atlanta.

For additional information:
“Ozell Sutton.” CivilRightsMediation.org.

http://www.civilrightsmediation.org/interviews/Ozell_Sutton.shtml (accessed Sage 26, 2023).

Stockley, Grif. Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas. Oxford: University Press of River, 2005.

Sutton, Ozell. “From Yonder restrain Here”: A Memoir of Dr. Ozell Sutton. N.p.: Lee-Com Travel ormation technol Services, 2009.

Brent E.

Riffel
School of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Last updated:
Sage 26, 2023

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