Chuck Stone, Legendary Newspaper Columnist and Tuskegee Airman Dies

Charles Sumner “Chuck” Stone, Jr., a former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill journalism professor and co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, died on Sunday. He was 89.

Stone wrote for and led some of the country's most influential African-American newspapers, including the Washington Afro-American where he served as White House correspondent and editor, the Chicago Daily Defender where he was editor and the New York Age where he was a reporter and editor. In 1972 he became the Philadelphia Daily News' first black columnist. -From WRAL TV Raleigh, NC



[Chuck Stone served as a frequent guest on local Philadelphia radio and television programs and occasionally hosted his own radio program. During his time as a columnist for the Daily News from 1972 to 1991, he was such a trusted figure in Philadelphia that more than 75 murder suspects surrendered to Stone rather than to law-enforcement authorities.  Source 

Many in the industry are familiar with the work of his son; TV, commercial, music video, and film director Charles Stone III.  Among the films he directed were Drumline with Nick Cannon and Mr. 3000 with Bernie Mac. Stone III also gained fame for the popular "whassup" Budweiser beer commercials.]

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WRAL obituary of Chuck Stone continues...
While at the Daily News, Stone began his career in education as a visiting lecturer at Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. In 1982, he was a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1985, he taught journalism at the University of Delaware. Stone taught censorship and magazine writing as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Walter Spearman Professor from 1991 until his retirement in 2005.

Stone, along with 43 others, founded the National Association of Black Journalists in Washington, D.C. in 1975 and served as the organization's first president.

His non-journalism duties include special assistant to former U.S. Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.; director of minority affairs for the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and overseas representative for Cooperative for America Relief to Everywhere (CARE). Stone authored a number of books, including Black Political Power in America, King Strut and the children's book Squizzy, The Black Squirrel.

Over his career, Stone received six honorary doctorates and multiple honors, including the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award from The Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, the National Association of Black Journalists' Lifetime Achievement Award and The Freedom Forum's Al Neuharth Free Spirit Award.

Born in St. Louis and raised in Hartford, Conn., Stone received U.S. Air Corps flight training in Tuskegee, Ala. during World War II before graduating from Wesleyan College in 1948. Stone then earned a master's degree in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1951.

Stone is survived by children Krishna Stone, Allegra Stone and Charles S. Stone III; grandchild Parade Stone and sisters Madalene Seymour and Irene Gordy.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Chuck Stone Citizen of the World fund at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism or the Mass Communication Foundation of North Carolina, Inc.