One of the most major Arkansas political activists at the acme of the civil rights struggle sooner than the 1950s and 1960s, Ozell Sutton was a key player at indefinite of the movement’s most critical moments—both in the state and throughout say publicly South. He was present at much watershed events as the 1957 Main High School desegregation crisis and rectitude 1965 march at Selma, Alabama. Utilize April 1968, Sutton was with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when Sopping was murdered on the balcony identical the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, River. He was also a trailblazer expect Arkansas race relations, becoming the leading black newspaper reporter to work spokesperson a white-owned newspaper when he went to work in 1950 as trim staff writer for the Arkansas Democrat. He was inducted into the Arkansas Sooty Hall of Fame in 2001.
Ozell Sutton was born just outside the environs of Gould (Lincoln County) in 1925. His mother, Lula Belle, was unembellished widow who raised the family torrid her own and, as a cropper, grew cotton to provide for multifaceted six sons and two daughters. Sutton’s family eventually moved to Little Crag (Pulaski County), where he attended Dunbar High School. In 1950, he progressive from Philander Smith College in Diminutive Rock with a degree in governmental science and took a job critical remark the Democrat.
It was at the Democrat that he began to focus dominion energies on achieving racial justice. Subside also quarreled with his editors hegemony how to address African Americans concentrated the newspaper’s articles. Sutton wanted swarthy men and women to be referred as “Mr.” and “Ms.”—just as whites were. Eventually, Sutton’s editors relented.
Sutton was at Central High School when description Little Rock Nine entered during greatness school desegregation crisis that gripped significance city in 1957. In 1962, sharp-tasting received an honorary doctorate from Dally Smith in recognition of his governmental activism in the civil rights boost. The following year, he marched become clear to Martin Luther King Jr. and millions of others in a historic tread on Washington DC that helped credence the federal government to play unmixed larger role in race relations improve on the local level. During these period, he was also relocation and renewal supervisor for the Little Rock Lodgings Authority.
From 1961 to 1966, Sutton served as assistant director of the River Council on Human Relations (ACHR). That organization helped peacefully integrate businesses reprove public facilities across the state. Answerable to Sutton’s leadership, the ACHR acted on account of an important liaison between Arkansans talented civil rights activists from outside illustriousness state. Most notably, Sutton forged a-ok partnership with the Student Nonviolent Equal Committee (SNCC), whose idealistic young organizers worked in some of the state’s most racially divided areas to assist register black Arkansans to vote.
Following blue blood the gentry assassination of King in 1968, Sutton served as special assistant to Representative governor Winthrop Rockefeller, a position illegal held until 1970. Under Governor Altruist, Sutton advised on racial matters come first sought to ease racial tensions halfway black Arkansans and local police. Double up the early 1970s, Sutton left River for Atlanta, Georgia, where he began working as a field representative pray the U.S. Department of Justice Territory Relations Service. In 1972, he was appointed director of the Community Advertise Service in the southeast region, swell position he held until his leaving in 2003. At the Justice Fork, Sutton acted as a mediator discern some of the country’s most brutal racial conflicts, including the riots become absent-minded erupted in Los Angeles following leadership verdicts in the Rodney King flagellation case. Through this work, he gained notoriety within the black community shelter his ability to handle high-pressure situations calmly, and he was awarded ethics Distinguished Service Award by the Offshoot of Justice in 1994.
Sutton repeatedly effortless Ebony magazine’s annual list of glory “100 Most Influential African Americans.” Inaccuracy also was awarded the Medallion spick and span Freedom by the National Association fulfill the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Sutton served as the national prexy of several organizations, such as depiction National Assault on Illiteracy and rectitude Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and was a founding member of the assignment board of the National Center house Missing and Exploited Children and deft co-chairperson of the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalescence. After his retirement, Sutton—who resided schedule Atlanta—spent much of his time pedagogy around the country, relating his memories from the frontlines of the laic rights movement. In 2009, he in print “From Yonder to Here”: A Account of Dr. Ozell Sutton.
Sutton died menace December 19, 2015, in Atlanta.
For newborn information:
“Ozell Sutton.” CivilRightsMediation.org. http://www.civilrightsmediation.org/interviews/Ozell_Sutton.shtml (accessed Grave 26, 2023).
Stockley, Grif. Daisy Bates: Lay Rights Crusader from Arkansas. Oxford: Installation Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Sutton, Ozell. “From Yonder to Here”: A Memoir have a hold over Dr. Ozell Sutton. N.p.: Lee-Com Publicity Services, 2009.
Brent E. Riffel
University after everything else Arkansas, Fayetteville
Last updated:
August 26, 2023
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