Vernon Jarrett, pioneering black journalist, is dead at 82

Chicago Tribune (reg. req.)
Vernon Jarrett began his career at the Chicago Defender in the 1940s, started contributing to the Chicago Tribune in 1970 and became the Tribune’s first African-American syndicated columnist. In 1983 he moved to the Chicago Sun-Times and remained there until 1994. “To white readers he could seem like a firebrand, but Vernon was equally tough on blacks,” says Trib columnist Clarence Page.
> Jarrett covered a race riot on his first day at the Defender (Sun-Times)