Robert Churchwell graduated from Pearl High School (1940) before being drafted (1942) and assigned to a WWII engineering unit. Suffering terribly from misdiagnosed PTSD, he graduated from Fisk in three years by attending both Fisk and Tennessee A&I. Early publishing attempts were unsuccessful but brought his talents to the attention of the Nashville Banner editor, a racial separatist who disdained blacks but needed to sell papers. When Churchwell reluctantly took the job writing ?Negro news,? he became one of the first black journalists on a white Southern municipal newspaper. He had to carry his stories from home ? it was five years before he had a desk in the newsroom. He authored articles about Nashville school desegregation, interviewing both black and white educators, and he covered the 1960 sit-ins, but the Banner refused to publish stories about the protests. After Churchwell?s 1981 retirement, his pioneering efforts finally won recognition, including the establishment of Nashville?s Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary School (2010). -- written by Kathy Lauder
Robert Churchwell graduated from Pearl High School (1940) before being drafted (1942) and assigned to a WWII engineering unit. Suffering terribly from misdiagnosed PTSD, he graduated from Fisk in three years by attending both Fisk and Tennessee A&I. Early publishing attempts were unsuccessful but brought his talents to the attention of the Nashville Banner editor, a racial separatist who disdained blacks but needed to sell papers. When Churchwell reluctantly took the job writing ?Negro news,? he became one of the first black journalists on a white Southern municipal newspaper. He had to carry his stories from home ? it was five years before he had a desk in the newsroom. He authored articles about Nashville school desegregation, interviewing both black and white educators, and he covered the 1960 sit-ins, but the Banner refused to publish stories about the protests. After Churchwell?s 1981 retirement, his pioneering efforts finally won recognition, including the establishment of Nashville?s Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary School (2010). -- written by Kathy Lauder
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