Television Journalist. He is best remembered for his series, "On the Road." He won 3 Peabody Awards and 11 Emmy Awards for his reporting. Born Charles Bishop Kuralt in Wilmington, North Carolina, the son of a social worker and a teacher, as a young boy, he began his journalist career when he won an American Legion essay contest and a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet President Harry Truman. During his college years, he worked as student editor for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill newspaper "The Daily Tar Heel." While at UNC, he would write on controversial topics and interview student radicals, and he campaigned for racial integration when it wasn't popular in the South. On April Fools Day, 1954, he printed a parody edition of "The Daily Tar Heel," which lampooned Senator Joseph McCarthy and the anti-communist crusaders, which won him a file in the FBI's local office. After graduating from college, he joined CBS as a news journalist, and was assigned to the Rio de Janeiro office. Rather than sit in his Rio office, he went out and interviewed the people, ranging from Generals to rebels, peasants, and politicians, including both the mundane and the international crises. In April 1962, he went to Cuba, where his reporting mostly considered Fidel Castro's revolution a failure, despite several promising changes. Accused of praising Castro and Cuban Communism, he was called upon to testify in July 1962 at the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, where he was cleared of any charges of boosting Castro's regime. Reassigned to the United States, Kuralt managed to go to the Dominican Republic to report on the American intervention there in 1965; his reports from there were considered some of his best. In 1967, during the Vietnam War when much of the news very negative, he began a series called "On the Road," which interviewed mostly ordinary people, telling stories of American life. Kuralt died in New York City of lupus, an inflammatory disease that attacks the joints, kidneys and nervous system. His CBS colleague, Walter Cronkite, summed up Kuralt's life when he stated, "There probably wasn't a more patriotic or loving man in television or the country than Charles."
Television Journalist. He is best remembered for his series, "On the Road." He won 3 Peabody Awards and 11 Emmy Awards for his reporting. Born Charles Bishop Kuralt in Wilmington, North Carolina, the son of a social worker and a teacher, as a young boy, he began his journalist career when he won an American Legion essay contest and a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet President Harry Truman. During his college years, he worked as student editor for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill newspaper "The Daily Tar Heel." While at UNC, he would write on controversial topics and interview student radicals, and he campaigned for racial integration when it wasn't popular in the South. On April Fools Day, 1954, he printed a parody edition of "The Daily Tar Heel," which lampooned Senator Joseph McCarthy and the anti-communist crusaders, which won him a file in the FBI's local office. After graduating from college, he joined CBS as a news journalist, and was assigned to the Rio de Janeiro office. Rather than sit in his Rio office, he went out and interviewed the people, ranging from Generals to rebels, peasants, and politicians, including both the mundane and the international crises. In April 1962, he went to Cuba, where his reporting mostly considered Fidel Castro's revolution a failure, despite several promising changes. Accused of praising Castro and Cuban Communism, he was called upon to testify in July 1962 at the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security, where he was cleared of any charges of boosting Castro's regime. Reassigned to the United States, Kuralt managed to go to the Dominican Republic to report on the American intervention there in 1965; his reports from there were considered some of his best. In 1967, during the Vietnam War when much of the news very negative, he began a series called "On the Road," which interviewed mostly ordinary people, telling stories of American life. Kuralt died in New York City of lupus, an inflammatory disease that attacks the joints, kidneys and nervous system. His CBS colleague, Walter Cronkite, summed up Kuralt's life when he stated, "There probably wasn't a more patriotic or loving man in television or the country than Charles."
Bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson
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