ULISH CARTER
Simply put, Ulish Carter was a man of the Black Press.
In his own words, Carter wrote in the New Pittsburgh Courier in 2011 that “after graduating from Southern Illinois University with my degree in hand…I was ready to see what was out there. I wanted to work for a Black newspaper, and nothing less would do. I wanted to make a difference in the Black community.”
Making a difference in the Black community, specifically Pittsburgh’s Black community, is exactly what Ulish Carter did.
Carter, who came to the Courier in 1973 as a sportswriter and later became managing editor, died on Wednesday, July 12, in the Pittsburgh area. He was 72.
There wasn’t one part of the Courier editorial operation that the hard-working Carter didn’t touch. He excelled in the sports department; in layout and page design; in the news department; in mentorship of other staff writers; in the selection of the best photos for the newspaper; on the entertainment beat; and as an opinion columnist. Carter and his team at the Courier won countless local, state and national awards. Carter, not one to toot his own horn, was calm and steady, unabashed in his opinions, the person you could count on to get things done.
Ulish Carter was born in Huntingdon, Tennessee. As a child, Carter moved to Paducah, Ky., before settling in Champaign, Ill. Patricia Lewis, one of Carter’s two sisters, told the Courier that Carter loved sports and was a member of his Centennial High School basketball team. As a high-schooler in the ‘60s, the Civil Rights Movement had a profound impact on Carter. He would often write about equal rights, along with sports, and Lewis would sneak into her older brother’s room and read Carter’s writings. While those writings weren’t published, it wouldn’t be long before Carter’s writings would reach the masses.
At Southern Illinois, Carter majored in Black History, American, African and World History. But then he took a…
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