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George McElroy: Undaunted, Untiring Pioneer Dies at 84

HOUSTON – George McElroy, a man who was synonymous with journalism excellence for more than 70 years, and the first to break many racial barriers in local and national print media and education died Saturday, Oct. 7 at the Michael E. DeBakey V.A. Medical Center. He was 84.

The cause of his death was acute respiratory distress syndrome, according to family members.

Mr. Mac, as he was affectionately called, had covered everything from boycotts and sit-ins during Houston’s Jim Crow period to Martin Luther King, Jr., Haile Selassie, Fidel Castro, Muhammad Ali and six American presidents.

With ink seemingly flowing through his veins, he carried on a 68 year love affair with Houston’s African-American press. He was only 16-years-old when he started writing a youth column for The Houston Informer—Texas’s oldest black newspaper. He earned $2 a week. He would ultimately go on to hold every position in the Informer’s news department including publisher.

As fate would have it, McElroy’s grandfather predicted when he was only 5 or 6-years-old that he would become a journalist.

“Out of about thirteen or so grandchildren, I was the only one allowed to touch my grandfather’s typewriter,” he said in a 2005 interview. “When people asked how come I was the only one allowed to touch it, he said ‘this boy can be a scribe’.”

McElroy told a story like another writer could – eloquent and heartfelt.

However, in 1960, it took more than journalistic skills to report about the turbulence of segregation. It took courage; and McElroy, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, had plenty of that.

“Racial segregation then was unbelievable,” he said. “…overall injustice in the community kind of made me sick.”

Through a media blackout, sit-ins, boycotts and the arrest of several Texas Southern University students determined to end racial segregation, McElroy told the daring stories of how Houston became an integrated city.

Never bitter or angry about the injustices of the day, McElroy played a pivotal role in helping TSU students integrate the city, “…undercover, helping get [the students] out of jail. Whenever TSU students were about to stage a sit-in, my job was to contact the media,” he said.

Unrelenting and fearless, McElroy did not just cover the news of the day, he also made the news. He fought to integrate schools like the University of Texas by applying for admissions to the journalism school following the landmark Sweat v Painter case in 1950, which forced that school to admit blacks into its law school. His application was denied.

The dean of admissions at U.T. wrote a letter to McElroy. The statement was printed in a Houston Informer article in 1950, “"Since the work you wish to take is offered at the institution that you are now attending, namely, the Texas State University for Negroes [Texas Southern University], we feel compelled at this time to refuse you admission to the University of Texas."

McElroy went on to graduate from TSU in 1956 and he later earned a Master’s degree from the University of Missouri in 1970. He was the first African-American to earn a Master’s degree in journalism from that school.

He started working at The Houston Post when he was a junior at TSU in 1954. He later became the first African-American at that newspaper to write a weekly feature column.

He was also the first African-American on the Communications faculty at the University of Houston and the first African-American with a journalism degree to teach journalism in the Houston Independent School District (HISD).
An entire week was proclaimed in McElroy’s honor by Houston mayor Fred Hofheinz in 1977.

He received more than 100 honors and awards from nationally prestigious professional organizations and government agencies. McElroy returned to TSU in 1976 where he headed the journalism department until 1989 when he retired.

However, he didn’t put his reporter’s pen and hat down until February of 2005 when he officially retired from the Houston Informer. He loved the black press. It was his “passion.”

He was instrumental in helping to start the National Negro Publishers Association (NNPA). He banded together with other African-American newspaper publishers to form NNPA, a predecessor of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

McElroy was a Houstonian. He lived most of his adult life in Third Ward on Wentworth St. He was married to the late Lucida McElroy for 45 years. He had five daughters—three of whom have degrees in journalism.

When asked his feelings on his twilight years, McElroy emphatically said, “I have no fears for the future, no regrets of the past."