Carl T. Rowan

Rowan's path ran through the newsroom before the State Department. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1947 and took a journalism master's at the University of Minnesota in 1948, starting at the African American newspaper Minneapolis Spokesman. In 1961 President Kennedy named him Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. The next year he served as a delegate to the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in 1963 he became ambassador to Finland. His books run from South of Freedom, published in 1952, to the memoir Breaking Barriers, published in 1991.

What the plaque says

Carl T. Rowan Born on August 11, 1925, Carl T. Rowan spent his formative years in McMinnville. During World War II, at the age of 19, he won one of the first fifteen Navy commissions granted to African Americans. During President John F. Kennedy's Administration, Rowan served as Deputy Secretary of State, Ambassador to Finland and Representative to the United Nations. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him as Director of the United States Information Agency in 1964. A newsman, author, diplomat, noted political columnist, and commentator. Carl T. Rowan died on September 23, 2000, in Washington, D.C.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rock Island State Park — 11 mi
  A park where the Collins, Rocky and Caney Fork rivers meet at the head of Center Hill Lake, with a gorge of waterfalls below a 1917 dam and the remains of a cotton-mill town.
• Savage Gulf State Park — 17 mi
  Roughly 19,000 acres of gorge and sandstone bluff on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau, a state park of its own since 2022, with the Stone Door and a National Natural Landmark.
• Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park — 23 mi
  A 2,000-year-old enclosure of piled stone and earth on the bluffs above the forks of the Duck River, built by Native people between about 80 and 550 A.D., with a museum and waterfall trails.
• Fall Creek Falls State Park — 24 mi
  A New Deal park on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau, where Cane Creek has cut a gorge and a 256-foot waterfall drops into it.

More markers nearby

• Anthia Brady Hughes 1868-1949 Willie Huges 1895-1986 — steps away
• Bernard School — steps away
• Morgan's Headquarters — 0.3 mi
• Lucy Virginia Smith French — 1.5 mi