Clarke Stallworth
Clarke Stallworth, Jr (born 1926 in Thomaston, Marengo County) is a retired newspaper editor, columnist and writing coach.
A paper carrier in his youth, Stallworth joined the Navy and served in both World War II and the Korean War. He got his degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina and returned to Alabama as a cub reporter for the Birmingham Post in 1948.
As a reporter (and photographer), Stallworth covered the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, nearly being killed once during an ambush in Sumiton and surrounded again at a backwoods rally. For his work reporting on the clean-up of Phenix City by the Alabama National Guard, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the Associated Press Sweepstakes for 1954.
Following the state legislature's mishandled reapportionment crisis in the early 1960s, he wrote a 14-part series exposing the "unholy alliance" between Black Belt interests and the "Big Mule" corporations in Birmingham. In 1963 he was made city editor of the Post-Herald, coordinating that paper's coverage of the Civil Rights struggles of that time. His membership in the Young Men's Business Club, which took an active role in lobbying for integration, caused conflict with his managing editor. Stallworth left for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer in Georgia in 1965 and stayed only two years before returning to Birmingham as city editor and managing editor for the Birmingham News.
Beginning in 1980, Stallworth began writing a regular "Alabama Journey" column with contemporary human interest stories. Another regular column, "A Day in the Life of Alabama" has been collected in three volumes of stories from Alabama's history.
Stallworth retired from the newspaper in 1991 and began a second career as a writing consultant, giving workshops across the country on behalf of the American Press Institute and teaching at the University of Alabama, Samford University and UAB.
Stallworth is married to novelist Ann Nall Stallworth and has two children.
References
- "About the author" in Clarke Stallworth (1994) A Day in the Life of Alabama. Birmingham: Seacoast Publishing. ISBN 1878561251