Civil rights era journalist Earl Caldwell, best known for his coverage as the only reporter to witness the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., will speak at the Davis Lecture Series Wednesday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m.
Jennifer Adams, associate professor of journalism and organizer of this year's lecture, knew Caldwell personally as a colleague at Hampton University.
"He's just a really good story teller," Adams said. "I thought he was someone that people would turn out to see."
The Davis Lecture Series, which is free to the public, is an annual event sponsored by the Department of Communication and Journalism.
The lecture usually features journalists who covered civil rights events and was created to honor Neil O. and Henrietta Davis.
The Davises are remembered as two people who advocated the civil rights movement in the Southeast through journalism during a time when it was not popular to do so.
Caldwell's lecture is titled "Being There When Something Really Important Happens: The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.," and follows last year's lecture by Pulitzer Prize winner Ray Jenkins.
"The focus of the lecture every year is to bring people in that can actually tell the stories that now students are reading about," Adams said.
The main topic of the lecture, which will be held in the 450-seat auditorium of the Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center, will be Caldwell's experience as a New York Times reporter on the day of the 1968 King assassination.
The Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles, the only living person to spend the last hour of King's life with him, stood beside King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis the day of the assassination. He said recalling that day is still painful, but he remembers Caldwell writing there.
"If you're a writer, you're always a writer. You find places and stories to write," Kyles said. "That was a traumatic experience for everyone there, and Caldwell was in the background writing."
Kyles said the first-hand account from Caldwell is an important part of journalistic history.
"It's something that we've learned all of our lives in history classes, but he can really bring it to life because he was there," Adams said.
"Also, with his Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Caldwell, that's something that I learned about when I was an undergraduate journalism student. It's not often that you get to meet somebody in a Supreme Court case; usually those people are long dead by the time they're in the history books."
David Carter, associate professor of history, said the media during the civil rights movement, particularly television media before 1965, played a critical role in translating the movement to the larger public.
Carter also said at the time, local media coverage in white journalism didn't always work to advance the cause of civil rights.
Kyles said he also remembered the local paper in Memphis, "The Commercial Appeal," publishing cartoons poking fun at the march.
"In that day we never thought the white media was friendly to us," Kyles said.
According to Carter, although there is a long history of black journalists in the United States, white audiences often ignored them.
What makes Caldwell different is that he was a black journalist employed by a white media outlet.
"After King was killed in April of 1968, the national media really treated the event as the tragedy that it was, but in a sort of elegy fashion, and then there was a national grieving period," Carter said. "Caldwell was really instrumental in that period and covering the assassination."
Carter said although journalists strive for objectivity, Caldwell shaped the event through his perspective and the particular questions he asked.
"He's an iconic journalist in that he has fantastic stories to tell," Adams said. "It would be a great night to come out."
According to Adams, the National Association of Black Journalists named Caldwell one of the most important journalists of the last 50 years for his coverage of the assassination, the Black Panther Party activities and race riots.
"I just think it's a great honor that he would come to Auburn and speak to us," Adams said. "It will tell us a little bit about the event he's covered and what it means to him, and what he thinks it means to journalism and what it means to history."
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