At Harry Ashmore's memorial service, his good friend and fellow journalist Bill Emerson said:
I don't treasure Ashmore as a scholar, or a historian, or a Pulitzer Prize winner. Scholars will suck the oxygen out of the air and dry your bone marrow up. Ashmore was a warrior. He would join in battle against the enemy with a fierce glee. He laughed when he fought- like the Celt that he was...if you search for Ashmore in the bosky dell- that is, in the grove of academe- he might appear in the distance to be half scholar, half Dionysus, but on an editorial mission that would take no prisoners.
Harry Ashmore's journey as a journalist and editorial writer led him to Little Rock in September 1947, when J. N. Heiskell, longtime editor of the Arkansas Gazette, hired him to join the state’s oldest newspaper. Just ten years later, Ashmore was a voice to be reckoned with when Little Rock was thrown into the national spotlight during the desegregation of Central High School.
Ashmore was born on July 28, 1916, in Greenville, South Carolina, to William Green Ashmore and Nancy Elizabeth Scott. Ashmore’s first exposure to journalism came when he served as the editor of the school newspaper while attending Greenville High School. His writing skills continued to develop at Clemson Agricultural College as he progressed from contributor to editor of the college paper while pursuing his degree in general science.
After graduation, Ashmore worked as a reporter for the Greenville Piedmont and later at the Greenville News. He attended Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow in 1941, but left before the fellowship ended to enter military service during World War II.
After he was released from service, Ashmore joined the staff of the Charlotte News (N.C.) as the editorial writer. He caught Heiskell’s attention at the 1947 American Society of Newspaper Editors annual meeting when he said, “I do think it is important to work out an editorial style which allows the reader to disagree with you without suffering from a stroke of apoplexy.” This philosophy dovetailed well with Heiskell’s sense of responsibility for his newspaper to take a stand when needed for the betterment of the state.
Soon after joining the Gazette, Ashmore assumed responsibility for managing the newsroom and Heiskell named him executive editor of the newspaper. His reputation as a moderate-to-liberal thinker garnered attention outside the state, especially after he addressed the Southern Governors’ Conference on the topic of civil rights in 1951:
For every genuine radical or cynical political opportunist who exploits the race question for his own ends, there are ten thousand sober, sincere, essentially conservative Americans who have excepted the proposition set forth in the civil rights program proposed by President Truman and embodied in the platform of the Republican Party. And the more we strike back in blind reaction to their demands, the more convinced they become that we are all misbegotten racists who will respond to nothing less than federal coercion. It is melancholy truth that some of those who- I suppose, sincerely- have cast themselves in the role of protectors of Southern institutions are in fact the region's most dangerous enemies.
Ashmore's words foreshadowed the desegregation crisis that thrust Little Rock into the national spotlight in 1957. During that turbulent time, he wrote a series of editorials that became a rallying point for the city's moderate-to-liberal population and brought the wrath of the segregationists down upon the Arkansas Gazette and Ashmore. The series, which began with a piece entitled, “The Crisis Mr. Faubus Made,” won a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing in 1958.
In 1959, Ashmore left the Gazette to serve as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and to join the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California. He died on January 20, 1998, and his ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of Santa Barbara.
Many of the people who emerged as leaders during the desegregation period credited Ashmore’s editorials with giving a voice to the people who opposed Governor Faubus’ actions, and helping them to find the courage to stand up for their convictions. Perhaps his greatest legacy lies in the number of journalists he inspired. Many flocked to the Gazette and carried on the Ashmore tradition during their long, notable careers—journalists including Jerry Dhonau, Robert Douglas, Ray Moseley, Charles Portis, Roy Reed, and Bill Shelton.
Sawyer, Nathania K. "Harry S. Ashmore: On the Way to Everywhere." MA thesis, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2001.
Nathania Sawyer is a Certified Archivist at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. She holds a master's degree in journalism from the university of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is the author of The Power of Relationships: 75 Years of the Southwest Power Pool and co-author of From Carnegie to Cyberspace: A Centennial Celebration of the Central Arkansas Library System.