“There were many Black writers that have gone mainstream. But George Curry made mainstream go Black,” said Rev. Sharpton. “He was smart enough to play the game and stay in certain newsrooms. But he chose not to do that because he chose the path of why Black Press started in the first place.”
Reverend Sharpton was eluding to the first Black Press editorial, published in the 1827 inaugural edition of Freedom’s Journal. That editorial stated, “We wish to plead our own cause. For too long have others spoken for us.”
Curry, who died of heart failure Aug. 20, started his career at Sports Illustrated, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Chicago Tribune. But he died as a hero, having found his calling in the Black Press. He was editor-in-chief of his beloved Emerge Magazine for seven years until it went defunct. Then he took up the banner becoming editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA), the Black Press of America. When he died, he had founded Emergenewsonline.com, a digital version of the hard copy magazine, which he never gave up hope to revive.
“If we love him, we will keep Emerge News Online going,” Rev. Sharpton said. “I don’t know what it will cost. I don’t know what it will be, but I want to be the first to help Ann keep that work going…I’m going to write the first check.”
Curry’s fiancée, Elizabeth “Ann” Ragland, looked on from the audience. Earlier, she had spoken, saying, how much Curry loved and valued his family, especially his mother, Martha Brownlee, and she reflected on his contagious sense of humor. Then, recalling his final moments, she said, “On last Saturday, my voice was the last person that George heard as I tried to keep him here with us. But there was a voice much stronger than mine, a voice that no person can say no to, a voice that even George Curry could not say no to…That voice is going to speak to us all.”
Curry’s death hit the journalistic community particularly hard as it came amidst one of the most controversial and heated presidential elections in history. Reverend Sharpton made clear that the Black Press is needed now more than ever.
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