Ralph McGill

Ralph McGill (born Feb. 5, 1898, near Soddy, Tenn., U.S.—died Feb. 3, 1969, Atlanta, Ga.) was a crusading American journalist whose editorials in the Atlanta Constitution had a profound influence on social change in the southern United States. He was sometimes called “the conscience of the New South,” and his influence was also important in interpreting the Southern states to the North and West.

McGill was born on a farm and raised in rural southeastern Tennessee not far from the Georgia border. He was able to attend a private secondary school and went on to Vanderbilt University, where he worked his way almost to graduation, with an interruption for World War I service in the U.S. Marine Corps. In 1922 and 1923 he worked for the Nashville Banner, where he was a reporter and soon became sports editor. He also contributed occasional features to the Atlanta Constitution. In 1931 he became the Constitution’s sports editor, continuing to write non-sports features from time to time.

As executive editor of the Constitution from 1938 to 1942, editor from 1942 to 1960, and publisher from 1960 until his death, McGill became known for his courageous campaigns against political corruption and racial injustice. He consistently opposed the Ku Klux Klan and in 1958 won a Pulitzer Prize for his enlightened editorials.

In the 1950s and ’60s his editorial voice strongly supported the drive to win full civil rights for blacks in the United States. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. His widely acclaimed book The South and the Southerner (1963) won the Atlantic magazine nonfiction prize.