Simeon Booker, a 1951 Nieman Fellow, retired in January 2007 as the Washington bureau chief of Jet magazine, where he had worked since 1954. In 1982 he received the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award. He recently wrote in Jet about his 1961 coverage of the Freedom Rides, describing the telephone call he made to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy that resulted in federal protection for the riders. He is writing a memoir of his coverage of the civil rights movement and the administrations of 10 U.S. Presidents.
