Hamlet, NC native and renowned journalist Tom Wicker passed away this weekend at the age of eighty-five. A 2004 inductee of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, Wicker earned his journalism degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1948, and began his career with newspapers in Aberdeen and Lumberton. He also wrote for the Winston-Salem Journal and the Nashville Tennessean before joining the New York Times, where he retired in 1991.
Other sources do a better job of summarizing his amazing career, including this Op-Ed piece from Wicker’s colleague Anthony Lewis, which recalls Wicker’s controversial stance as a Southern liberal in an era when Civil Rights were at the forefront of the news.
Wicker is perhaps best-known for reporting on the assasination of President John F. Kennedy, details of which can be read here. His book, A Time to Die, recounts his experience observing first-hand the Attica Correctional Facility uprising of 1971. A slideshow can be viewed at the Times’ website, here.