Life
NABJ co-founder Charles Stone Jr., dies at 89
“He was one of those people who makes you feel good just to bump into him when you came into the office because he was so happy where he was and doing what he did,” Dexter said.
Dexter said Stone’s work resonated with the Daily News’ black readership in a time of racial strife in the city.
“I can’t tell you how divided racially Philadelphia was when I got there. It was nothing like it is now,” Dexter said.
Stone’s family said dozens of suspects turned themselves into Stone before the authorities because of his efforts to hold the criminal justice system accountable. He was also credited with helping to negotiate the release of 6 guards at a Pennsylvania prison who were held hostage by inmates in 1981.
“I damn near had a nervous breakdown,” Stone later told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I spent 2 days negotiating and they released the hostages after the second day. So then when people got in trouble and there were hostages, they said, ‘call Chuck Stone to get us out of this.'”
Stone was born in St. Louis in 1924 and raised in Connecticut. After his time in the military, he graduated from Wesleyan University and earned a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Before UNC, Stone also taught journalism at the University of Delaware. Books he wrote include “Black Political Power in America” and the novel “King Strut.”
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press
