Ted Poston "Dean of Black Journalists"

Historical marker location:

Hopkinsville, Kentucky

( Ninth and Main Streets, Hopkinsville)

Theodore Roosevelt Poston was born on July 4, 1906, in Hopkinsville. He was a graduate of Attucks High School and Tennessee A&I State College. In 1936 he began freelance writing for the New York Post and was soon hired full-time. He retired in 1972 after spending a career there. He died in NYC in 1974 and is buried in Cave Spring Cemetery, Hopkinsville.

He covered major civil rights stories of his era and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1949. Poston received numerous other awards, including the George Polk Award in Journalism for national reporting. His book of short stories, The Dark Side of Hopkinsville, was published in 1991. He was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2000.

Dedicated May 20, 2017.

African American