Carter, Hodding

Carter, Hodding,

1907–72, American journalist and news publisher, b. Hammond, La. He taught briefly at Tulane Univ. and worked as a newspaperman until starting (1932) his own paper, the Hammond (La.) Daily Courier, which was distinguished by its opposition to Huey Long. In 1936 he moved to Greenville, Miss., and started another paper, which became the Delta Democrat-Times. After World War II, he wrote a series of articles on racial, religious, and economic intolerance that won him the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for editorials. Particularly cited was his plea for fairness for returning Nisei soldiers. Among his works—both fiction and nonfiction—are Mississippi (1942), Where Main Street Meets the River (1953), The Angry Scar: The Story of Reconstruction (1959), First Person Rural (1963), and Doomed Road of Empire (1971). His son, Hodding Carter 3d, 1935–, succeeded him at the Delta Democrat-Times, and was assistant secretary of state for public affairs from 1977 to 1980.