'Viciously Racist' Coverage Prompts Hall of Fame Ouster

A regional press organization says it has removed a mid-20th century Maryland newsman from its Hall of Fame after a review of his work found writings that were racist and even promoted lynching.


BALTIMORE (AP) — A regional press organization said it has removed a mid-20th century Maryland newsman from its Hall of Fame after a review of his work found writings that were racist and even promoted lynching.

Edward J. Clarke, the longtime owner and editor of the Worcester Democrat newspaper on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, was inducted into the Maryland-D.C.-Delaware Press Association’s Hall of Fame in 1954. But last week, the group’s board of directors voted unanimously to terminate that honor after a University of Maryland journalism student uncovered Clarke’s editorials, The Baltimore Sun reported.

“The MDDC Press Association board condemns in the strongest terms the ideas expressed in Clarke’s writing and in his newspaper coverage, which also was racist,” according to a statement the organization released Wednesday.

Gabriel Pietrorazio exposed writings by Clarke that likened the Black suspects in a 1940 homicide to “a rabid dog,” “a disease-spreading germ” and “garbage.” Clarke called for “a good stout rope, a noose at one end, good stout arms at the other, a neck and a limb of a tree” as the best way to deal with the “fiends who violated the home” of a white couple in Pocomoke City.

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/maryland/articles/2021-11-12/viciously-racist-coverage-prompts-hall-of-fame-ouster