Hugh Patterson Jr., 91; Publisher of Arkansas Gazette

Hugh B. Patterson Jr., whose 38 years as publisher of the Arkansas Gazette included the Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis, died Monday, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He was 91.

Patterson was publisher of the Gazette from 1948 to 1986, when the newspaper was sold to Gannett Co.

The Gazette won two Pulitzer Prizes 1958 -- one for its news coverage of Central High and the other for editorials.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Publisher Walter E. Hussman Jr. said Patterson’s greatest achievement was the Gazette’s coverage of the Central High desegregation.

“It was a difficult time, and he certainly responded,” Hussman said.

The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

“I said, ‘Well, of course, it’s got to be recognized that the Supreme Court decision was the only decision that could have been made,’ ” Patterson later recalled in an interview with the Associated Press.

“We have to recognize that this is a transitional time in terms of public policy and it will, perhaps, take some time for that to be realized, but there’s just no option to this. It’s a fundamental matter.”

In September 1957, nine black students braved angry white mobs to attend Central High. Gov. Orval Faubus had called out the National Guard to prevent black children from attending the previously all-white school, but President Eisenhower sent Army troops to escort the youngsters into the school and maintain order.

Patterson “was absolutely vital to leading the paper to the position it held: Obey the law and the court decision,” said Roy Reed, a former reporter for the Gazette who is a professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

The paper lost millions of dollars in circulation and advertising revenue because of a boycott by segregationists but eventually regained the lost circulation.

Born Feb. 8, 1915, in Cotton Plant, Miss., Hugh Baskin Patterson Jr. worked for a commercial printing company in high school and continued in the business until he joined the Army Air Forces in 1942.

In 1944 Patterson married Louise Heiskell, the daughter of J.N. Heiskell, principal owner and editor of the Gazette from 1902 until his death in 1972.

Patterson joined the newspaper in 1946, working as national advertising manager, and two years later became publisher at age 35.

Patterson and Louise Heiskell divorced in 1987, and she died in 1990. Patterson’s survivors include his second wife, Olivia Lid Nisbet; and sons Carrick Heiskell Patterson and Ralph Baskin Patterson.