Vincent Lushington Ottley (1906-08-02)August 2, 1906 New York City, New York, United States
Died
October 2, 1960(1960-10-02) (aged 54)
Occupation
writer, journalist, broadcaster
Language
English
Nationality
American
Notable works
New World A-Coming: Inside Black America
Vincent Lushington "Roi" Ottley (August 2, 1906 – October 2, 1960) was an American journalist and writer.[1][2] Although largely forgotten today, he was among the most famous African American correspondents in the United States during the mid-20th century.[3]
Early life
Ottley was born in New York City on August 2, 1906, to Jerome Peter and Beatrice Ottley, the second of their three children.[1] His parents were immigrants from the Caribbean island country of Grenada.[2] He attended public schools in the city, where he excelled in basketball, baseball, and track,[2] and in 1926 he won a track scholarship to St. Bonaventure College in Allegany, New York.[1][2][4] At St. Bonaventure, he was a writer and cartoonist for the campus newspaper.[2] In 1928, he transferred to the University of Michigan to concentrate on journalism.[2] He later studied part-time at St. John's Law School[1] and Columbia University, both in New York City.[2][4]
Career
Ottley worked as a journalist for the Amsterdam News from 1931 to 1937.[1] In 1937, Ottley joined the New York City Writers' Project as an editor.[1] In 1943 he published New World A-Coming: Inside Black America, which described life for African Americans in Harlem, New York City, in the 1920s and 1930s.[2][3][4] The book incorporated Ottley's reports from the New York City Writer's Project.[1] It won the Life in America prize, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a Peabody Award, and was adapted for a series of radio broadcasts.[1][2][4] Also the book became the basis for the anthology radio program broadcast on WMAC in New York.[5]
Ottley became the publicity director of national CIO War Relief Committee in 1943.[1] He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the US Army in 1944.[2] During World War II, Ottley reported from Europe for Liberty Magazine, PM, and the Pittsburgh Courier, becoming the first African American war correspondent to cover the war for major newspapers.[1][2][4] Ottley covered events such as the Normandy Invasion, the hanging of Mussolini, and the Arab–French conflict in Syria.[1] He also interviewed important personalities like Governor Talmadge of Georgia, and Samuel Green, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.[1] Ottley also became the first African American to interview a pope when he met with Pope Pius XII in 1945.[2]
Ottley's other published works include Black Odyssey: The Story of the Negro in America, 1948;[6]No Green Pastures, 1951;[7] and Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S. Abbot, 1955.[8] Two were published posthumously: White Marble Lady in 1965,[9] and The Negro in New York: An Informal Social History, 1626–1940 in 1967.[10][1]
^Savage, Barbara Dianne (1999). "Chapter 6: New World A'Coming and Destination Freedom". Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race 1938–1948. Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 246–270. ISBN978-0807848043. OCLC40135343.
Ottley, Roi and Huddle, Mark A. Roi Ottley's World War II: The Lost Diary of an African American Journalist (University Press of Kansas, 2011). ISBN978-0700617692, 978-0700618910, OCLC681500381
Lankford, James R. (Winter 2013). "Book Review: Roi Ottley's World War II: The Lost Diary of an African American Journalist". On Point. 18 (3). Army Historical Foundation: 60. ISSN2577-1337. JSTOR26363235. OCLC7852920490.
Savage, Barbara Dianne (1999). "Chapter 6: New World A'Coming and Destination Freedom". Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race 1938–1948. Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 246–270. ISBN978-0807848043. OCLC40135343.
