Author, editor, Pulitzer Prize winner. Born in Greenville on July 28, 1916, to William Green Ashmore and Nancy Elizabeth Scott, Harry Ashmore grew up in relative poverty but obtained a general science degree from Clemson College in 1937. He demonstrated exceptional writing skills and pursued a journalism career after serving as editor on his high school and college newspapers.<\/p>\n
Ashmore\u2019s reputation as a journalist grew at the Greenville Piedmont <\/em>and Greenville News, <\/em>garnering him a Nieman Fellowship in 1941. His editorials at the Charlotte (N.C.) News <\/em>led to a job at the Arkansas Gazette <\/em>in 1947.<\/p>\n One of several southern journalists whose \u201cliberal\u201d views on desegregation and civil rights attracted national attention and local scorn, Ashmore won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials opposing Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus\u2019s attempt to stop the integration of Little Rock\u2019s Central High School in 1957. However, Ashmore shunned the \u201cliberal\u201d tag, claiming to be a gradualist\u2013supporting the removal of the \u201cseparate but equal\u201d system by degrees.<\/p>\n Ashmore\u2019s 1954 book, The Negro and the Schools, <\/em>summarized a massive Ford Foundation research project on the disparate biracial educational system in the South. Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court later told Ashmore the research findings influenced the Court\u2019s desegregation implementation decision.<\/p>\n After leaving the Gazette <\/em>in 1959, Ashmore served as editor in chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica <\/em>and joined Robert Maynard Hutchins\u2019s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California, where he lived until his death. During his career Ashmore wrote ten books, many of which discussed the changing attitudes in the New South. He explained, \u201cAll of these books of mine, with all the examining, I\u2019m trying to examine my own attitude. How did I get to this point from where I started? What changed my mind?\u201d Ashmore died in Santa Barbara on January 20, 1998.<\/p>\n Ashmore, Harry S. Civil Rights and Wrongs: A Memoir of Race and Politics, 1944\u20131996. <\/em>Rev. ed. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.<\/p>\n \u2013\u2013\u2013. An Epitaph for Dixie. <\/em>New York: Norton, 1958. Sawyer, Nathania K. \u201cHarry S. Ashmore: On the Way to Everywhere.\u201d Master\u2019s thesis, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author, editor, Pulitzer Prize winner. Born in Greenville on July 28, 1916, to William Green Ashmore and Nancy Elizabeth Scott, Harry Ashmore grew up in relative poverty but obtained a general science degree from Clemson College in 1937. He demonstrated exceptional writing skills and pursued a journalism career after serving as editor on his high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-2984","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a","ecms-a-z","ecms-african-americans","ecms-civil-rights-era-1955-1969","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-great-depression-1930-1938","ecms-greenville-county","ecms-jazz-age-1919-1929","ecms-literature","ecms-politics","ecms-popular-culture","ecms-post-war-america-1946-1954","ecms-the-modern-state-1970-present","ecms-upstate","ecms-world-war-i-1914-1918","ecms-world-war-ii-1939-1945"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n