The Smell of Burning Crosses

About the Book

About the Author

Ira Harkey, a native of New Orleans, has spent his adult life as a newspaperman, a writer and a college teacher. He was graduated from Tulane University with a BA and received a master of arts in journalism and a doctorate in political science from The Ohio State University. He spent nearly four years in the United States Navy in Wold War II, seeing combat aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. His last assignment was as a mobile correspondent. He began newspaper work in 1939 in New Orleans, and from 1949 to 1963 was editor and publisher of the Chronicle at Pascagoula Mississippi where he won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in support of Negro rights. After leaving newspaper work he entered teaching at Ohio State and the University of Alaska, magazine writing and lecturing. His other books are Noel Wien: Pioner Bush Pilot, Statehouse Correpondents, and Alton Ochsner: Surgeon of the South (co-author.) He lives near Kerrville in Texas with his third wife Virgia Quin Harkey.