A First Draft of History

Ted Poston (1906-1974) was the first African American reporter to spend his career at a major metropolitan daily. For thirty-five years he infused the New York Post with a black viewpoint on topics as varied as the paranoia engendered by McCarthyism and the light-stepping magic of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Here are some fifty of Poston's best pieces, including a generous sampling of his Post articles and important early work from the Pittsburgh Courier, Amsterdam News, and New Republic.

Poston's life as a journalist spanned decades of civil-rights tumult and triumph; often he was on the scene as history unfolded. Blending street smarts, provocative humor, and high moral purpose, his articles always had something fresh to say, even about such media-saturated events as the Scottsboro Boys trials, the Brown v. Board of Education case, and the Montgomery bus boycott. Alongside such work, A First Draft of History also showcases Poston's gift for making the black experience meaningful to white readers in stories that portrayed the humanity in a Depression-era Harlem shantytown or the terror of a white rampage through rural black Florida. The influential people Poston wrote about amount to a "who's who" list of African American achievement during his time; included here are profiles of such towering figures as Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Langston Hughes, and Adam Clayton Powell.

Ted Poston's writings are as insightful and engaging today as when they first hit the newsstands.

Kathleen A. Hauke is an independent scholar living in Arlington, Virginia. She is the author of Ted Poston: Pioneer American Journalist.