Roy Reed, BJ ’51, MA ’54

Roy Reed, BJ ’51 and MA ’54, died Dec. 10, 2017. Reed was a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette and New York Times. He covered the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, shadowing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and witnessing the “Bloody Sunday” melee when police and a posse beat black marchers with clubs and bullwhips on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on March 7, 1965. “He was an historic figure, one of the greatest national correspondents of all time,” said Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times. “He was a great and lyrical writer who understood the South at a time when it was the center of the biggest story in the land. I met him when I was a young reporter in New Orleans – which he covered for a while – and I recall him as humble and truly decent.” After covering civil rights in the South for a couple of years, Reed joined the Times’ White House bureau covering President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Later, Reed was an author, professor and farmer. [More]

Updated: December 11, 2017