Milton Coleman Dies, Progeny of ‘the Projects’
Heart Disease Claims News Industry Leader at 79 How Far Will Latino Journos Go for Press Freedom? (Oct. 30; updated)
Milton Coleman reads introductions of speakers at the Herbert H. Denton Jr. Memorial Scholarship Dinner in suburban Maryland on June 7. (Credit: Richard Prince)
Heart Disease Claims News Industry Leader at 79Milton Coleman, who said that as a journalist his goal was to lift up the kind of people he grew up with in his Black Milwaukee neighborhood, died at 79 Friday at the Washington Hospital Center “after navigating a growing series of health challenges in the last few years,” his son, Sekou Coleman, announced Sunday on Facebook.
“He had gone into the hospital on Monday after collapsing at home and was taken to the hospital. Milton had heart disease, which was the precipitating cause,” a former Washington Post colleague reported.
At the Post, where Coleman worked from 1976 to 2009, he became one of the highest-ranking Black newspaper editors in the mainstream media, as well as an industry leader, heading the American Society of News Editors as well as the Inter-American Press Association, which comprises publishers of newspapers in the Americas. He prided himself on having learned Spanish.
“Milton was so energetic and full of ideas,” said Post colleague Don Podesta. “I worked with him on a couple of projects, mostly involving outreach to the Latino community and he was all in… even to the point of recording his Post voicemail greeting in both English and Spanish.”
Coleman said that his obituary was sure to include high up the furor that erupted when he reported in 1984 that Jesse Jackson, as a Democratic presidential candidate, had uttered the words “Hymie” and “Hymietown” to refer to Jews and to New York. The publication led to death threats and…