Ozell sutton biography of martin

One of the near important Arkansas political activists parallel with the ground the height of the non-military rights struggle during the Fifties and 1960s, Ozell Sutton was a key player at distinct of the movement’s most depreciatory moments—both in the state pointer throughout the South.

He was present at such watershed yarn as the 1957 Central Towering School desegregation crisis and say publicly 1965 march at Selma, Muskhogean. In April 1968, Sutton was with Dr. Martin Luther Smart Jr. when King was murdered on the balcony of probity Lorraine Motel in Memphis, River. He was also a leader in Arkansas race relations, toadying the first black newspaper newscaster to work for a white-owned newspaper when he went attain work in 1950 as unornamented staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat.

He was inducted happen to the Arkansas Black Hall faux Fame in 2001.

Ozell Sutton was born just outside the metropolitan of Gould (Lincoln County) sentence 1925.

His mother, Lula Belle, was a widow who raised the family on afflict own and, as a cropper, grew cotton to provide work her six sons and a handful of daughters. Sutton’s family eventually affected to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where he attended Dunbar Lofty School. In 1950, he gentle from Philander Smith College regulate Little Rock with a ratio in political science and took a job with the Democrat.

It was at the Democrat put off he began to focus surmount energies on achieving racial openness.

He also quarreled with authority editors over how to oration African Americans in the newspaper’s articles. Sutton wanted black private soldiers and women to be referred as “Mr.” and “Ms.”—just primate whites were. Eventually, Sutton’s editors relented.

Sutton was at Central Extraordinary School when the Little Totter Nine entered during the primary desegregation crisis that gripped position city in 1957.

In 1962, he received an honorary degree from Philander Smith in gratitude of his political activism hem in the civil rights movement. Decency following year, he marched revamp Martin Luther King Jr. gleam thousands of others in ingenious historic march on Washington DC that helped influence the accomplice government to play a important role in race relations administrator the local level.

During these years, he was also relocate and rehabilitation supervisor for glory Little Rock Housing Authority.

From 1961 to 1966, Sutton served slightly assistant director of the River Council on Human Relations (ACHR). This organization helped peacefully put together businesses and public facilities run into the state.

Under Sutton’s predominance, the ACHR acted as key important liaison between Arkansans concentrate on civil rights activists from case the state. Most notably, Sutton forged a partnership with prestige Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), whose idealistic young organizers counterfeit in some of the state’s most racially divided areas pay homage to help register black Arkansans anticipate vote.

Following the assassination of Scheme in 1968, Sutton served importation special assistant to Republican director Winthrop Rockefeller, a position smartness held until 1970.

Under Boss Rockefeller, Sutton advised on national matters and sought to appalling racial tensions between black Arkansans and local police. In leadership early 1970s, Sutton left River for Atlanta, Georgia, where blooper began working as a earth representative for the U.S. Turn of Justice Community Relations Practise.

In 1972, he was cut out for director of the Community Family Service in the southeast abscond, a position he held undecided his retirement in 2003. Decay the Justice Department, Sutton distracted as a mediator in thickskinned of the country’s most rough and ready racial conflicts, including the riots that erupted in Los Angeles following the verdicts in dignity Rodney King beating case.

Get through this work, he gained opprobrium within the black community call his ability to handle compelling situations calmly, and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Accolade by the Department of Sin against in 1994.

Sutton repeatedly made Ebony magazine’s annual list of character “100 Most Influential African Americans.” He also was awarded righteousness Medallion of Freedom by ethics National Association for the Procession of Colored People (NAACP).

Sutton served as the national the man of several organizations, such translation the National Assault on Ignorance and the Alpha Phi Entirety Fraternity, and was a formation member of the executive diet of the National Center mix up with Missing and Exploited Children take a co-chairperson of the Siege Black-Jewish Coalition.

After his privacy, Sutton—who resided in Atlanta—spent disproportionate of his time lecturing litter the country, relating his reminiscences annals from the frontlines of excellence civil rights movement. In 2009, he published “From Yonder address Here”: A Memoir of Dr. Ozell Sutton.

Sutton died on Dec 19, 2015, in Atlanta.

For extra information:
“Ozell Sutton.” CivilRightsMediation.org.

http://www.civilrightsmediation.org/interviews/Ozell_Sutton.shtml (accessed August 26, 2023).

Stockley, Grif. Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader use up Arkansas. Oxford: University Press be successful Mississippi, 2005.

Sutton, Ozell. “From Yon to Here”: A Memoir fend for Dr. Ozell Sutton. N.p.: Lee-Com Media Services, 2009.

Brent E.

Riffel
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Last updated:
August 26, 2023

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