The late Ted Poston, a Hopkinsville native who spent 33 years at the New York Post, is among those being inducted this year in to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.
Poston was one of the first African American journalists to work on a white-owned metropolitan newspaper and he would go on to win two of journalism’s major awards.
A Poston biography on the hall of fame website says the 1924 Attucks High School graduate began his career at age 15 writing for his family’s newspaper, the Hopkinsville Contender. He wrote for two major Black-owned newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier and the New York Amsterdam News. A union activist, Poston was fired from the News for helping the American Newspaper Guild organize its staff.
Poston covered such stories as Jackie Robinson joining Major League Baseball, the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Little Rock Nine and the Birmingham bus boycott.
He retired from the Post in 1972 and died two years later. He is buried in Cave Spring Cemetery in Hopkinsville.