Inventory to the Percy Lavon Julian Family Papers

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Percy Lavon Julian Family Papers
Series III: Folder 9
Julian Memorial Lecture: Vernon Jarrett
April 19, 1985

     "... faith and the good life of man have been the cornerstone of education at DePauw; and it is my prayer... that every scientist here shall be as concerned with the "oughtness" of things in human life as he is with the "isness" of things in the material world." Dr. Percy L. Julian (from his address presented on the occasion of the dedication of the new Science and Mathematics Center)

     Vernon Jarrett's vivid reflections on his childhood days in Paris, Tennessee, can be found in Studs Terkel's best-selling book AMERICAN DREAMS: Lost and Found. In it he portrays the growing-up days of a young black boy living in a small town on the L & N Railroad. "We called ourselves a part of that Illinois Central. The tracks that began somewhere in Louisiana went all the way to Chicago. . . . The trains were always going to take you somewhere . . . .  They used to have excursions, too. Where you could at least say you'd been there, to the Promised Land." (p.82) Vernon Jarrett did eventually come to the Promised Land - to the Great Lakes Naval Station in World War II.

     In 1946 he began his career in journalism as a general assignment reporter for the 80-year-old black newspaper, The Chicago Defender. Today he is considered one of our country's foremost newspaper columnists and television commentators on race relations, politics, and urban affairs. He writes a provocative column for the Chicago Sun-Times and 120 other newspapers. He is also a twice-weekly commentator on the evening news for WLS-TV, and ABC-owned television station in Chicago. Mr. Jarrett is a graduate of Knoxville College in Tennessee and has studied further at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Kansas City. He is married to the former Fernetta Hobbs, a public school teacher. They have two sons, William Robert Jarrett, M.D., and Thomas Jarrett, a television sound and camera man.

   Vernon Jarrett became a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune in 1970, and since that time his columns have earned him over 100 awards from civic, religious, cultural, professional, and business associations. In 1977 and 1978 he served on the 50-member Pulitzer Prize panel of jurors that selected the winners for the prize in journalism. His columns have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in five different years. He is also a former visiting professor of history at Northwestern University.

     In 1979 he was named one of the country's five top journalists in a national poll of black leaders conducted by Ebony Magazine. He is the producer and host to the informative WLS-TV Sunday morning talk program, Vernon Jarrett, Face to Face, which is in its seventeenth year. During the 1983 historic election of Chicago's first black mayor, the Honorable Harold Washington, Vernon Jarrett gained national recognition as one of Chicago's most highly respected political reporters.

     He has won national recognition as the creator of the "Olympics of the Mind," better known as ACT-SO, acronym for Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics. This NAACP-sponsored program is designed to stimulate academic achievement among black youths on par with their excellence in basketball and football. This program has awarded over $300,000 in cash prizes to hundreds of previously unrecognized black high-school scholars and future scientists from throughout the nation.

     When this gifted black journalist speaks for his people, he also speaks for all those who walk toward freedom and self-fulfillment. DePauw University is proud to welcome Vernon Jarrett to the campus of Percy L. Julian.