Louis E. Austin

Louis E. Austin. Editor-Publisher of The Carolina Times. The Long Black Freedom Struggle , Born in Enfield, North Carolina in 1898, Louis Austin personified the black freedom struggle. Growing up in an era of white supremacy, many blacks gave up hope of overturning racial segregation in economic, political and social life. But Austin had the vision and fortitude to use the power of the press to fight for a country that treated all as equal. , The Great Depression , After purchasing Durham's black newsweeklyThe Carolina Times in 1927, Austin championed anti-segregation action through the courts and black political mobilization through the Democratic Party. In 1933, Austin initiated the South's first legal challenge to segregated higher education, the attempt to enroll Thomas Hocutt – represented by local black attorneys Conrad Pearson and Cecil McCoy – in the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Although losing in state court, the Hocutt case was an important precedent to the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools. , World War II , During world war two, Austin backed the “Double V” campaign, which fought for victory against the Axis abroad and against racial injustice at home. He also supported A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington Movement, which prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order banning racial discrimination by defense contractors. , Postwar Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1971 , Austin joined activists who supported litigation and political action while advocating civil disobedience. In 1947, he arranged the South's first interracial football game, held in Durham between a white team from Philadelphia and a black team from Washington, D.C. In 1953, he handled public relations for Rencher N. Harris's election as the first black member of the Durham City Council, and in the 1960s, he published the names of stores boycotted for their failure to hire black workers. Austin died in Durham in 1971. His daughter Vivian Austin Edmonds published The Carolina Times from 1971 to 2002, and his grandson Kenneth Edmonds continues to publish the newspaper today.