Before coming to the Daily News, Stone served as editor for several African-American newspapers: the New York Age, the Chicago Defender, and the Washington Afro-American. As editor, he was strongly associated with the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.
In the 1960s Stone served as a special assistant and speechwriter to Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, one of the most powerful African-American politicians of the 20th century.
In 1991, Stone left the Daily News for a career in academe. Stone became a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He taught censorship and magazine writing while at UNC and won Excellence in Teaching on more than one occasion. He retired in 2004.
Over his storied career, Stone received six honorary doctorates and several awards, including the Distinguished Service in Journalism Award, the National Association of Black Journalists’ Lifetime Achievement Award and The Freedom Forum’s Al Neuharth Free Spirit Award.
In 2004, NABJ inducted Stone into its Hall of Fame. In 2007, Stone and other Tuskegee Airmen or their widows were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush in recognition of the Airmen’s service during World War II.
Few men have achieved so much in a lifetime. This legend in journalism will be missed.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
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