ABSTRACT
L. Alex Wilson, the most honored of the black journalists on the story and, at age 49, the senior member of the group, was behind the wheel. Most afternoons, he would come home from school and disappear into his bedroom, where his mother would find him writing, writing, writing. Wilson turned first to teaching, becoming an assistant principal, then principal, of high schools in north central Florida. In racial temperament, north central Florida was historically only slightly less virulent than the worst parts of the South. From teaching, Wilson turned to journalism to fulfill his childhood ambition to write, working for a number of newspapers before landing at the influential Norfolk Journal and Guide in Virginia. Wilson's colleagues marveled at his ability to work his way inside fortresses of white power and come out with something without seeming to compromise anything.
