{"id":4328,"date":"2016-08-22T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=4328"},"modified":"2026-08-06T14:59:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:59:46","slug":"pioneering-journalist-george-curry-dead-at-69","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2016\/08\/22\/pioneering-journalist-george-curry-dead-at-69\/","title":{"rendered":"Pioneering journalist; George Curry dead at 69"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the driving forces for equality in journalism and truth in telling the Black experience, George Curry, passed away this past Saturday (Aug. 20) at the age of 69.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curry known as a fiery, tell it like it is, journalist was best known in his role as editor-in-chief of Emerge<\/em> magazine \u2013 a role he held from 1993 to 2000. Most credit Curry and Emerge<\/em> with President Bill Clinton\u2019s 2000 pardon of Kemba Smith, a young African-American woman convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison under federal mandatory minimum guidelines. Written by Reginald Stuart and approved by Curry in 1996, the 17-page Emerge<\/em> article revealed that the extent of Smith\u2019s role in her abusive boyfriend\u2019s drug operation was making a couple of phone calls and handing off money to an associate of her then boyfriend. The expos\u00e9 told how a na\u00efve Hampton University student was unwittingly and unwillingly lured into the world of drugs and it unearthed the absurdity of mandatory minimum sentencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHad it not been for George Curry and his purpose I easily could have had to serve my entire prison sentence,\u201d said Smith during a phone interview with Insight News.<\/em> \u201cMr. Curry was like a father to me; he and Mr. Stuart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith said she and Curry stayed in close contact following her release, having seen him last in late summer of 2015 at the home of Stuart. She said she was devastated to hear of Curry\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was outside at my parents\u2019 home and my mom came out and I could tell by the look on her face something bad had happened. I asked what was wrong and she said \u2018George Curry.\u2019 It really hit me hard. I always talk about how much Emerge<\/em> meant to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Curry\u2019s tell it like he saw it style; Emerge<\/em> also featured articles with provocative cover illustrations of Justice Clarence Thomas \u2013 one with a rag on his head and another depicting Thomas as \u201cThe Lawn Jockey for the Far Right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immensely respected by his peers, Curry later went on to become the editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) News Service and was a regular columnist, whose writings appeared in more than 200 publications, including almost weekly appearances in Insight News.<\/em> In 2003 Curry was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Curry, who was at the time a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/em> and president of the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists, who created the NABJ chapter\u2019s journalism workshop that would train such journalists as Russ Mitchell (CBS\u2019s Evening News, The Early Show)<\/em> and Insight News\u2019<\/em> managing editor, Harry Colbert, and later became the model for the NABJ national body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are hundreds of journalists who can trace their roots back to Curry thanks to his founding of the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists Minority Journalism Workshop. I know because I am one of them,\u201d said Colbert. \u201cGeorge Curry was one of the most poignant voices of our time and his loss immensely saddens us here at Insight News.\u201d<\/em>  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curry was a graduate of Knoxville College (Tenn.), a historically Black institution. He also received training at Harvard University and Yale University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curry\u2019s death was unexpected; as it appeared he suffered a sudden heart attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the driving forces for equality in journalism and truth in telling the Black experience, George Curry, passed away this past Saturday (Aug. 20) at the age of 69. Curry known as a fiery, tell it like it is, journalist was best known in his role as editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine \u2013 a role he held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[2713,2714,2715],"class_list":["post-4328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classifieds","tag-george-curry","tag-kemba-smith","tag-reginald-stuart","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-12.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4330,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4328\/revisions\/4330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}