August 30, 2016

Sharpton Eulogizes George Curry: 'I Have Fought a Good Fight, I Have Finished My Course, I Have Kept the Faith!'
Admonishes Black Press to 'Keep Telling the Story!'

By Hazel Trice Edney

Rev. Al Sharpton gives eulogy of lengendary journalist George Curry. PHOTO: Charles W. Cherry II/Florida Courier 

Black journalists and publishers were seated in a reserved first two rows in honor of Curry. PHOTO: PJ Fischer/Tennessee Tribune

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (TriceEdneyWire.com)  - One minute the congregation was somber and in tears; the next minute they were rocking to choir music in the pews; the next minute they were laughing in fond memory; and then they were shouting and applauding on their feet.

That was the range of emotions that marked the packed house during the “Celebration of Life” for legendary journalist George Curry at Weeping Mary Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, Ala., August. 27.

The Rev. Al Sharpton gave a eulogy of the Black press journalist, columnist, commentator and editor that soared from a touching and sometimes humorous tribute to a fiery sermon that shook the sanctuary. Stately Black journalists and publishers were among those moved by the Spirit as Sharpton’s message pointed largely to how they must now escalate their voices as they continue telling the story.

“There were many Black writers that have gone mainstream. But George Curry made mainstream go Black,” said Sharpton to applause. “He was smart enough to play the game and stay in certain newsrooms. But he chose not to do that because he chose the path of why Black Press started in the first place.”

Sharpton was eluding to the first Black Press editorial, published in the 1827 inaugural edition of Freedom’s Journal. That editorial stated, “We wish to plead our own cause. For too long have others spoken for us.”

Curry, who died of heart failure August 20, started his career at Sports Illustrated, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Chicago Tribune. But he died as a hero, having found his calling in the Black Press. He was editor-in-chief of his beloved Emerge Magazine for seven years until it went defunct. Then he took up the banner becoming editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA), the Black Press of America. When he died, he had founded Emergenewsonline.com, a digital version of the hard copy magazine, which he never gave up hope to revive.

“If we love him, we will keep Emerge News Online going,” Sharpton said. “I don’t know what it will cost. I don’t know what it will be, but I want to be the first to help Ann keep that work going…I’m going to write the first check.”

Curry’s fiancée, Elizabeth “Ann” Ragland, looked on from the audience. Earlier, she had spoken, saying, how much Curry loved and valued his family, especially his mother, Mrs. Martha Brownlee and she reflected on his contagious sense of humor. Then, recalling his final moments, she said, “On last Saturday, my voice was the last person that George heard as I tried to keep him here with us. But there was a voice much stronger than mine, a voice that no person can say no to, a voice that even George Curry could not say no to…That voice is going to speak to us all.”

Curry’s death hit the journalistic community particularly hard as it came amidst one of the most controversial and heated presidential elections in history. Sharpton made clear where the Black Press must go from here.

“George Curry left us in a critical time in history,” Sharpton said. “In five months will be the first time in American history that we will see a White succeed a Black president. We’ve never been here before…which means those of us who write the story are going to have to follow a script that’s never been written before. If we ever needed a strong independent, but ethical Black Press, we’re going to need it now,” he said.

Dozens of Black publishers, writers, photographers, former interns and mentees, mostly from NNPA, took up the first two pews of the church. The sanctuary was also packed with hundreds of people, including his family and Tuscaloosa residents who came to say farewell to their hometown hero.

Sharpton attended the funeral despite a march against violence in Washington that he was monitoring by phone. “I said I would be here because no matter what he was doing, George was always here – not just for me – but for all of us.”

Reflecting on his friendship with Curry, who appeared on the last hour of his daily radio show every Friday – including the day before he died – Sharpton said, “George never knew that he was much more of a minister to me than I was to him.”

He said among the encouraging principles that Curry taught him was, “It’s not what everybody else thinks of you. It’s about what you think of yourself. And if you grab a hold to what your calling is and believe what you think you can be, everybody else’s judgement won’t matter.”

Still, Curry held even his political and civil rights friends accountable.

“He never let his friendship interview with his journalism. He would write against us and praise us the next week if we earned it,” Sharpton said. “At the end of the day the ones that really respect you are the ones that respect you enough to correct you because they don’t give you a cheap way out. And that’s what George would do.”

Sharpton said it was Curry’s courage that marked his unique style of reporting and column writing.

“Progress has never been as a result of people who didn’t take risks. George knew he wasn’t going to benefit by telling Kemba’s story. He knew he’d lose advertisers. He knew he wouldn’t be on “Face the Nation” if he put a handkerchief on Clarence Thomas’ head.”

The audience applauded vigorously at the recognition of both - the Kemba Smith and Clarence Thomas stories, which appeared on the cover of Emerge.

“But he told the truth. He chose his integrity. He chose the roots he got in Tuscaloosa rather than getting a pat on the back from folk that’s going to fire you anyway…George was a man’s man. And a proud man. That’s why George mattered.”

Smith, who called Curry her “hero”, was among the speakers, which also included journalists Ed Gordon and Roland Martin. NNPA President/CEO Dr. Benjamin Chavis and SCLC President/CEO Dr. Charles Steele also spoke. A childhood friend and Tuscaloosa native, Steele also presided at the funeral and the memorial service the night before, where the keynote speaker was the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Driving home his point, Sharpton humorously rebuked journalists and activists who claim they have a new way of covering or protesting injustices, giving a scenario of one person who tried to convince him that the times had changed and there are new strategies for speaking truth to power.

He told of one person who said this, yet could not answer when asked what new strategies? Dismissing the person’s excuse for not taking a stand, Sharpton said he answered the question for him:

“If you don’t have a strategy, don’t act like you’ve got a different plan,” he said. “If you’re scared, say you’re scared!...And sit down and shut up and let somebody that’s not scared say what needs to be said.”

Ultimately, it was the Biblical text of the eulogy that brought the congregation to their feet at the end of the three-hour service.

 Sharpton preached from II Timothy 4:6-7, 11-13 when Paul, knowing his death was near, said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith!”

But, then Paul told Timothy to bring certain things to the jail, including “parchments”, which interpreted, means his writings.

“Bring my books and bring my papers because I did what the rest of the Apostles didn’t do. I wrote the story. And the story would be distorted unless we that lived the story, wrote the story!” Sharpton preached.

He admonished Black journalists and publishers, “Keep telling the story…George never stopped. Until the very end, he never backed up and he never compromised. And he never negotiated his dignity for a contract or for a favor. That’s why when we say ‘so-long’, we’ve lost something that we’ll never see that way again. George Curry was part of a long tradition. But he was one of a kind.’”

Mrs. Martha Brownlee, Curry's beloved mother, who had wept in mourning for her only son as she visited the casket, ended the service dancing in his honor as Sharpton preached and the organ punctuated his message:

“I come to Tuscaloosa to tell you that George won’t be laying in the cemetery. George has got to go through the cemetery. But, George is on his way home now. He fought a good fight! He kept the faith! He finished his course!”

As a final reflection and recognition of the continued struggle at hand, the congregation locked arms and sang the Civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.”

(TriceEdneyWire) - Renowned civil rights and Black political journalist George E. Curry, the dean of Black press columnists because of his riveting weekly commentary in Black newspapers across the country, is being remembered this week as a legend.
Curry died suddenly of heart failure on Saturday, August 20. He was 69.

"He stood tall. He helped pave the way for other journalists of color to do their jobs without the questions and doubts," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. with whom Curry traveled extensively, including to the funeral of President Nelson Mandela. "He was a proud and tireless advocate of the Black press, serving two tours as editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association's news service."

Curry's fiancée Ann Ragland confirmed that the funeral will be held Saturday, August 27, at 11 am at the Weeping Mary Baptist Church, 2701 20th Street, Tuscaloosa, Ala. Rev. Al Sharpton will give the eulogy. A viewing on Saturday will be from 8:30-11 am.

Ragland said a viewing will also be held on Friday evening, Aug. 26, with Rev. Jackson speaking, but the time and venue have not been confirmed by deadline. Additional details will be announced this week.

Having grown up in Tuscaloosa during the height of racial segregation, Curry often said he "fled Alabama" and vowed never to return when he went away to college. However, Ragland said he always told her to return him home to Tuscaloosa upon his death.

Shocking rumors of his death circulated heavily in journalistic circles on Saturday night until it was confirmed by Dr. Bernard Lafayette, MLK confidant and chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference shortly before midnight.

"This is a tragic loss to the movement because George Curry was a journalist who paid special attention to civil rights because he lived it and loved it," Lafayette told the Trice Edney News Wire through his spokesman Maynard Eaton, SCLC national communications director.

Curry's connection to the SCLC was through his longtime childhood friend, confidant and ally in civil rights, Dr. Charles Steele, SCLC president. Steele and Curry grew up together in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where they played football at Druid High School. Curry bloomed as a civil rights and sports writer as Steele grew into a politician and civil rights leader.

"He was a pacesetter with the pen. He saw things that other people didn't see," said Steele. "And once he saw those things, he embraced them and exposed them in terms of putting information into the hands of people who would normally be left out of the process, meaning the African-American community."

Ragland, Curry's fiancée and closest confidant, drove him to the Washington Adventist Hospital emergency room after he called her complaining of chest pains Saturday afternoon. He insisted that she take him instead of calling an ambulance. She said he remained conscience throughout the cardiac tests and the doctor assured her he would be fine. But his heart took a sudden turn. She said the doctor tried to explain to her that the turn was totally unexpected. "He said, 'He was okay, but then his heart just stopped.'"

Curry's closest colleagues knew and respected him for his journalism and his demand for excellence, which was sometimes expressed in a no nonsense, drill sergeant style of communicating. But, Ragland said the one thing that most people don't know is "how, even though he was so brash sometimes, how compassionate he was for other people."

She gave an example of his being at a recent doctor's appointment and meeting an older man who was having difficulty walking. She said Curry not only helped the man along but bought him lunch.

Curry began his journalism career at Sports Illustrated, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and then the Chicago Tribune. But he is most revered for his editorship of the award-winning former Emerge Magazine and more recently for his work as editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association from 2001-2007 at NNPA offices located at Howard University. He returned to leadership of the NNPA News Service in 2012 until last year when he left amidst budgetary issues.

"It's hard to believe that George Curry, a giant in the journalism profession is no longer with us. The news of George's death leaves a tremendous void that will be difficult to fill," said NNPA Chairwoman Denise Rolark Barnes, publisher of the Washington Informer. "George's uncompromising journalistic leadership delivered on Emerge's promise to deliver edgy, hard-hitting, intellectual, well-written and thoroughly researched content that attracted national attention and left an indelible mark on the lives of many."

Barnes added, "I was honored to carry George's weekly column in the Washington Informer and to work with him as he served as editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Wire. George provided so much of his time, energy, wisdom and incredible journalistic genius to the Black Press. His work will stand as a lasting legacy of journalist excellence and integrity of which all of us in the Black Press and in the journalistic field at large can field extremely proud."

Jake Oliver, publisher and chairman of the Baltimore-based Afro American Newspapers, who first hired Curry as NNPA editor-in-chief, recalled their long friendship.

"I'm in total shock. I've lost a very close, dear friend," Oliver said. "I hired him at the NNPA at the turn of the century and even before then we worked remotely on various issues that we had the same point of view about. George was a journalist par excellence...He spent a lot of time at his craft and perfected it at a high level. And as a result, he was able to generate national and indeed, international respect," Oliver said.

"There was so much that he gave to the Black Press and the gifts that he's left us are enormous."

The name, George Curry, is as prominent among civil rights circles as among journalists. He did weekly commentary on the radio show of the Rev. Al Sharpton. Curry had appeared on the show on Friday, the day before his death.

"When I started my daily radio show 10 years ago, I asked him to close the final hour every week on Friday," Sharpton recalls. "About a month ago, he went away for two weeks. He came back last Friday. We teased him [saying] he had rarely missed a Friday. We talked about the elections and everything and the next day he died, which was shocking to me."

Sharpton said Curry's legacy "is integrity, is boldness, is holding people - including Black leaders that were his friends - accountable. And defending us when we deserved it."

Sharpton concluded, "George was probably the ultimate journalist and the epitome of a Black journalist. He held us all accountable as he also told our story with no fear and no concern about his own career. He was a man of supreme integrity and boldness that I don't know if I've met anyone that came close."

Curry's reputation was broad and highly esteemed. Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also issued a statement upon his death.

"George E. Curry was a pioneering journalist, a tireless crusader for justice, and a true agent of change," Clinton wrote. "With quality reporting, creativity, and skillful persuasion he influenced countless people, including me, to think beyond their narrow experience and expand their understanding. George may be gone, but he will not be forgotten."

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), wrote: "George E. Curry was a giant in journalism and he stood on the front lines of the Civil Rights era and used his voice to tell our stories when others would not."

When he died he was raising money to fully fund Emerge News Online, a digital version of the former paper magazine. He had also continued to independently distribute his weekly column to Black newspapers.

In 2003, he was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists for his work as editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com, NNPA's public news website.

"I am heartbroken to learn that Mr. George Curry has passed. He has been a beacon for so many and a pivotal voice among Black publishers. His strength and pursuit for the truth will carry on in the lives he touched," said NABJ President Sarah Glover in a statement this week.

The NABJ release also recalled Curry's love for working with students and future journalists.

It quotes Neil Foote, a friend of Curry's and president of the National Black Public Relations Society, saying, "George has made so many contributions to journalism - from the high school journalism workshops to his passionate fight for the black press. There's a generation of journalists - including me - who are grateful to have had the chance to know him."

Curry was working to revive Emerge as an online publication at the time of his death. The NABJ statement quotes TV-ONE host Roland S. Martin, a friend, colleague and fellow columnist, who honored Curry during his NewsOne Now television and radio shows this week: "He was still fighting to revive that magazine until his last moment on earth...George Curry died with his boots on, still fighting."

 

August 30, 2016

SHARPTON EULOGY STORY WILL BE POSTED SEPARATELY BY 10 AM (EST)

 

 

 

PHOTO: PJ Fischer/Tennessee Tribune

“Sometimes Genius is Found in the Cracks” 

Prepared text of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. in keynote remarks during “A Time of Reflection” for

George Edward Curry on Friday, August 26 at Elizabeth Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - If when you give the best of your service he will say ‘well done’. Job said when my worst fears come upon me I know my redeemer lives because he lives in my soul.  And ‘though you slay me ye will I trust you’.  Death cannot break the bonds between George and God and his family and those who came to know and love him.

Tonight George’s life has called forth an unplanned family reunion. We are not here because he died.  We are here because he lived and injected life into us.  The reality we face tonight is that life is uncertain, and death is certain.  With our tools we negotiate life’s challenges and hardships.  We finally have run out of negotiating space.

George was born in radical racial segregation.  At a time when we could use the hotel, the motel, the library, public park benches.   George was born when we could not aspire to attend the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, while living and raised in Tuscaloosa.  He was born in segregation, but did not internalize it.

He was born in a town with two birds:  the eagle flew on one side of town with the power to fly high seemingly without limitations and looking at the noon day sun.  On his side of town Jim Crow, the crow flew.  He did not bite Jim Crow and its presence did not scare him.

He mastered his environment.  He was an odds buster and a dream maker.  You have no choice as to where you are born, nor to whom you are born, or the conditions under which you are born.  You have to negotiate with what you have to work with.  He was born having to play baseball with a short stick.

Somewhere the eagles fly inherit home runs.  They are born with scores before they ever go to bat.  Some are born on third base, as if they hit a triple.  A few are denied the bat, denied the spikes, denied the equipment and play on rocky fields, but still score.  They are dream makers and odds busters.

Born behind the high walls of segregation before Rosa Parks sat in, Dr. King proclaimed, before Autherine Lucy was escorted into University of Alabama by the military.  He was born with a low ceiling, by law could not stand upright, or dream upright or hope upright; somehow George blossomed in the cracks.

One  day while taking a morning walk down the sidewalk two blocks of cement that barely pulled apart, in the cracks, which was supposed to be covered, there was grass growing in the cracks.  The soil was supposed have been covered by the cement; but in the crack was just enough fertile soil and water for this seed to blossom into grass and flower.

Life finds a way, sometimes genius is found in the cracks.  Not far from here Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Bo Jackson came out of the cracks and became the best at their chosen profession.  As you come into consciousness realize tight space and adjust.  Rationalize that this is your plight and develop a cracked complex.

You can resent and become embittered, survive, but never change the limits of your potential.  Or you can resist.  Something within you can ordain you to make crooked ways straight.  It is said that the arc of the universe bends towards justice, but you must have the will to grab the arc and bend it.  If the door of justice is too big for you to get open, you should at least leave some footprints or some fist prints showing that you tried to open it with what you had to work with.

In George’s formative years before he was a teenager, he heard the stories of the 5,000 lynchings…He heard the stories of the Scottsboro boys. But in George’s crack was a mother and parents who hovered over their little eaglet whispered in his ear that he was neither row nor buzzard, that he was an eagle.  That he could fly high.

Nurtured at home, cultivated at Knoxville College, the school of Vernon Jarret and Michael Dyson.  George was maladjusted and restless with indignity.  He learned that literacy was the key to liberation.  In the shadows of the University of Alabama, he was the rejected stone, but at Knoxville College he became a cornerstone of hope and possibility.  What a mind.

I met George in 1980 when we were conducting a boycott on Budweiser opening up the beverage industry.  George was writer and interpreter, researcher of that struggle which we finally won.  In the 84 campaign his ability, integrity, capacity and convictions were expressed with white reporters confronted him and Sylvester Monroe and Jack White and Ken Walker about the quality of their journalism, the confrontation did not last long and never happen again.

He was a part of that first wave of black journalists on my 84 campaign who interpreted the new day, understood the rule changes and helped to make the case for the new day.  We saw his special genius in Emerge magazine, or as an interpreter on BET or as a columnist in NNPA.

What made George different?  What do we gather from his genius?  He didn’t walk around as a nerd, or a certain kind of unicorn.  Genius it is often said should be hard work dressed up in work clothes.  The qualities that elevated him from the cracks:

1. He had a good mind.  Strong minds break strong chains.  His mind outlived his body. He died with his shoes on.
2. He was physically strong to work long hours, do research, travel around the world.  We went to Japan, Morocco, South Africa, France and Britain together.  He was able.
3. He had the courage of his courage of his convictions.  He did not just follow opinion polls, or the politics of his publisher, he had a point of view and molded the culture.
4. His mission was greater than his job.  When the walls closed in he knew how to move.  He had scientific objectivity.  He could see other people as they were not as we would have them to be.
5. He had confidence in black people.  Our progress delighted him.  It never surprised him.  He knew with Olympic rules we could get the gold medal.  He knew that President Barak would overcome a broken home, climb to higher heights and become of source of healing for the nation and world.
6. He left the world better than he found it.

Lastly, George had a faith, shaped by his mother and his family in God.  He had a faith in God as the righteous judge of the universe, not the Alabama judge limited by the state and culture.  He told our story.  He told us what we didn’t know.  He made us feel better about what we did know.  In George we lost a lot, but he left us with a lot.

His heart wore out because he used it so much.  It was bigger than normal.  I think he may have had an aneurism because he used his brain so much.  It has been said a mind is a terrible thing to waste, it is even worse that a mind go unused… We were in Central Africa one night talking about when the time comes, what we want people to say over you. And George said, ‘Stand over me and say, ‘He’s getting up.’…. He will get up one day.

Dr. William Barber II, left, president of the North Carolina NAACP, energizes the crowd of thousands who withstood Saturday’s scorching heat to march from Monroe Park to the Monument Avenue statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va. to call for an end to slave wages.