Whitney Young and John S. Knight

One black and white photographic print of American newspaper publisher and editor John S. Knight (left) conversing with American civil rights leader Whitney Young during a visit to Akron in the 1960s as they sit at a head table of distinguished guests. Young (1921-1971) spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively fought for equitable access to socio-economic opportunity for the historically disenfranchised. Knight (1894-1981) parlayed the Akron Beacon Journal, which he inherited from his father, into Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc., for a brief time the largest newspaper publisher in the United Sates.