Ozell Sutton, an Arkansas native whose work with the civil-rights movement began as the first black journalist at the Arkansas Democrat and led him to state and national political appointments, died Saturday at the age of 90, his family said.
When he was hired by the Democrat after graduating from Philander Smith College in 1950, it was the first time a black reporter was employed by a white-owned newspaper in the state, according to previous Democrat-Gazette coverage.
In 1957, Sutton was involved with the desegregation crisis at Central High School, where he reported being beaten.
Sutton accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil-rights leaders to the March on Washington in 1963 and to Selma, Ala., in 1965.
He was staying with King when King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
Sutton later worked as a civil-rights adviser to Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller and for the U.S. Justice Department's Community Relations Service, according to his biography by the Central Arkansas Library System.
Sutton was named an Arkansas Civil Rights Honoree in 2013. He spoke to a crowd in front of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce then about his efforts to desegregate downtown.
“You don’t know what it was like trying to desegregate downtown Little Rock,” the Democrat Gazette reported he said while close to tears. “You don’t know what it took to get to this occasion."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.