Carl Thomas Rowan (August 11, 1925 - September 23, 2000) was an American government official, journalist and author. Rowan was one of the most honored reporters in the United States. About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316759775/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316759775&linkCode=as2&tag=tra0c7-20&linkId=ebc21c58f96ec373a58fe37a1a4f664c

Carl Rowan was born in Ravenscroft, Tennessee, and was raised in McMinnville, in that state. Rowan was determined to get a good education. He graduated from Bernard High School in 1942 as class president and valedictorian. He studied at Tennessee State University (1942--43) and Washburn University (1943--44). He was one of the first African Americans to serve as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy. Rowan was also a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. He graduated from Oberlin College (1947) and earned a master's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota (1948). He began his career in journalism writing for the African-American newspapers Minneapolis Spokesman and St. Paul Recorder (now the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder).[1] He went on to be a copywriter for The Minneapolis Tribune (1948--50), and later became a staff writer (1950--61), reporting extensively on the Civil Rights Movement.[2]
In 1961, Rowan was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by President John F. Kennedy. The following year, he served as a delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rowan became the U.S. Ambassador to Finland in 1963. In 1964, Rowan was appointed director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In serving as director of the USIA, Rowan became the first African American to hold a seat on the National Security Council and the highest level African American in the United States government.
From 1966 to 1998, Rowan wrote a syndicated column for the Chicago Sun-Times and, from 1967 to 1996, was a panelist on a television program Agronsky & Company, later called Inside Washington; Rowan was a fair opponent whose arguments were persuasive and well-balanced - he always came across as the voice of reason.
His name appeared on the master list of Nixon political opponents. Rowan was a 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his commentaries. He is the only journalist in history to win the Sigma Delta Chi medallion for journalistic excellence in three successive years.
Carl Rowan was a well known and highly decorated journalist. His columns were published in more than one hundred newspapers across the United States. In 1968 he received the Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Colby College. In 1997, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.[3]
Thurgood Marshall's only interview while serving on the Supreme Court of the United States was for Carl Rowan's 1988 documentary. The National Press Club gave Rowan its 1999 Fourth Estate Award for lifetime achievement. On January 9, 2001, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dedicated the press briefing room at the State Department as the Carl T. Rowan Briefing room.

In the late 1950s, Rowan covered the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the South, including the historic Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955, resulting from Rosa Parks's refusal to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger. As the only black reporter covering the story for a national newspaper, Rowan struck a special friendship with the boycott's leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. When news of an unlikely compromise settlement of the boycott came to Rowan's attention across the Associate Press wire, he notified King, who made quick steps to discredit the story, which was about to appear in a Montgomery newspaper, thus ensuring the continuance of the boycott.

Founded in 1987 by Rowan, Project Excellence was a college scholarship program for black high-school seniors who displayed outstanding writing and speaking skills. Rowan founded Project Excellence to combat negative peer pressure felt by black students and to reward students who rose above stereotypes and negative peer influence and excelled academically. Chaired by Rowan, a committee of journalists, community leaders, and school officials oversaw the program. Participants were African-American students in their senior year of high school from public, private, and parochial schools in the metropolitan Washington area, including the Virginia and Maryland suburbs. By 2000 the program had given out $26 million in scholarship money to over 1150 students.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Rowan