Scoop

Book excerpt: From a gullible cub reporter with the Daily Herald in Biloxi and Gulfport, to the peerless beat reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering civil rights in the South, Jack Nelson was dedicated to exposing injustice and corruption wherever he found it. Once he realized that segregation was another form of corruption, he became a premier reporter of the civil rights movement. Nelson was, through his steely commitment to journalism, a chronicler of great events, a witness to news, a shaper and reshaper of viewpoints, and indeed one of the most important journalists of the twentieth century.