Nathan Young, Jr. – 2006
Nathan Young’s enduring media legacy was the founding of the St. Louis American in 1928. As a practicing attorney, and later a judge, Young spent much of his time researching facts. When not in court, he would delve into court records, newspaper files and history books, talking with anyone he could meet about their memories of life in early St. Louis. He turned his findings into books, poetry and music. Mr. Young wrote for the St. Louis American for more than 40 years. The often violent racial unrest that afflicted many Northern cities in the 1920s and 1930s made newspapers like his St. Louis American, published by and for the black community, a necessary part of people’s lives.