February 8, 1915

Hugh Patterson was born in Cotton Plant, Mississippi. His family moved to Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in 1917. Patterson was publisher of the Arkansas Gazette for thirty-eight years and is considered the unsung hero of the triumvirate that led the newspaper through the 1957 desegregation crisis at Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The paper’s coverage of the crisis won two Pulitzer Prizes.