John Henry McCray
Journalist, news publisher and activist
John Henry McCray (1910-1987) lived in Lincolnville, South Carolina, and graduated from Avery Institute in Charleston and Talladega College in Alabama. In 1939, he started his own newspaper, the Charleston Lighthouse. In 1941, McCray moved the paper’s operations to Columbia and published the first edition of the Lighthouse and Informer. It was the state’s largest African American owned newspaper for more than a decade and promoted the work of the South Carolina NAACP Conference of Branches. In 1944, McCray co-founded the South Carolina Progressive Democratic Party to challenge state and national Democrats who supported segregation and blocked African American voting.
Image courtesy of South Caroliniana Library