Claude Fox Sitton was an American newspaper reporter, editor, and journalist. He was best known for writing unflinching eyewitness accounts of events of the civil rights era in the Southern states as a reporter for the New York Times. His stories appeared on the newspaper’s front page and influenced public opinion and government policy.
Background
Claude Fox Sitton was born on December 4, 1925 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, to Claude Booker Sitton, a railroad conductor, and Pauline Fox Sitton, a high school mathematics teacher.
Claude was raised on a farm in Rockdale County, Georgia. He had one sibling, Paul Lyon Sitton, who was the first administrator of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration.
His great-grandfather had been a tax collector for the Confederacy, a slave owner and mayor of Pendleton, N.C. His father was a railroad conductor who bought a farm during the Depression, outside of Conyers, Georgia. Young Claude worked beside black sharecroppers there.
Education
Sitton graduated from high school in 1943 and entered the Merchant Marine before joining the U.S. Navy. He saw action in the South Pacific and Philippine Islands during World War II.
In 1946, Sitton enrolled in Emory-at-Oxford (now Oxford College of Emory University) for one year, then continued his college work at Emory University in Atlanta. Sitton studied primarily in the Department of Journalism, receiving the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. Besides, while at Emory, he was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper "The Emory Wheel".
Sitton began his career in journalism as a reporter for International News Service in 1949-1950 and for United Press in 1950-1955.
Sitton then became an information officer for the United States Information Agency in 1955 and was also press attache for the United States embassy in Ghana.
In 1957, he joined the staff of The New York Times as a copy editor and worked there during the 1950s and 1960s, distinguishing himself by his coverage of the civil rights movement. In 1964, he went on to become national news director of the Times.
He left the Times in 1968 and became an editor of The News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, and editorial director and vice president of The News and Observer Publishing Company. He wrote a weekly column for the editorial page whose well-aimed attacks aroused the ire of the state’s more conservative elements. One of those was North Carolina’s long-time Republican senator Jesse Helms; Sitton also wrote incisive analyses on public education, the Environmental Protection Agency, and civil rights issues. His columns brought him the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1983. Sitton had later served on the prize foundation’s board for nine years and chaired it from 1992 to 1993.
Sitton retired in 1990 as editor of The News & Observer and vice president of The News and Observer Publishing Company and returned to Atlanta. There, he had taught press coverage of the civil rights movement at his alma mater, Emory University, for three years.
Claude Fox Sitton was an adherent to Presbyterianism.
Politics
Claude Fox Sitton was an adherent of the Democratic Party.
Views
Quotations:
"We want our colored people to go on living like they have for the last hundred years."
"Racists here, as elsewhere, have underscored this principle: the rights of dissent and freedom of association - which they so frequently invoke for themselves - do not extend to those who disagree with them."
Membership
Claude Fox Sitton was a director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors from 1977 to 1983. He was also a member of the National Conference of Editorial Writers and chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board in 1992-1993.
In addition, Sitton was a member of the Georgia State Supreme Court Commission on Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement in 1995-1996. He was also a member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation Board during 1994-1997.
Besides, Sitton was a board member of Georgia American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1996 to 1997 and board of counselors of Oxford College, Emory University.
American Society of Newspaper Editors
,
United States
1977 - 1983
Pulitzer Prize Board
,
United States
1992 - 1993
Georgia State Supreme Court Commission on Evaluation of Disciplinary Enforcement
,
United States
1995 - 1996
Georgia First Amendment Foundation Board
,
United States
1994 - 1997
Georgia American Civil Liberties Union
,
United States
1996 - 1997
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Hank Klibanoff: "It was not that Claude was some flaming liberal or liberator. He just liked a good story and liked to have it first. And frequently he was reporting on injustice - and they knew, on the civil rights side, that if The New York Times wrote about it, it would get attention from important people."
Connections
Claude Fox Sitton married Eva McLaurin Whetstone on June 5, 1953. They had four children - Lauren Lea, Clinton Whetstone, Suzanna Fox and Claude McLaurin.