Biography:

Newspaper editor. Born– January 11, 1888, Haleburg. Parents– William Rabun and Parmelia Ann (Davis) Hall. Married– Claudia McCurdy English, May 14, 1912. Children– One. Education– Alabama country schools. Printer’s devil in Dothan, 1905; editor, Enterprise Ledger, 1907; Dothan Daily Siftings, 1908; managing editor, Selma Times, 1909; editorial writer, Pensacola Journal, 1910; associate editor and editor, Montgomery Advertiser, 1910-1941.  Appointed probate judge in Montgomery County, 1933, served 1933-34 but was defeated for re-election. Served in Alabama National Guard, 1906-1908. Member of personnel board of State Merit System. First Southern editor to support Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Presidency.  Argued for release of the Scottsboro boys. Winner of $500 Pulitzer Prize for “best editorial writing in 1928” for editorials in the Advertiser against gangism, flogging, and racial and religious intolerance. Died January 9, 1941.

Source:

Marquis who’s who online

Daniel Hollis, An Alabama Newspaper Tradition. University of Alabama Press, 1983.

Publication(s):

The Egregious Gentile Called to Account. Montgomery, Ala.; Montgomery Advertiser, 1939. (published in the U.S. Congressional Record, January 17, 1939.)