Alfred A. Duckett
*Alfred A. Duckett was born on March 8, 1917. He was a Black author, speech writer, and activist.
Duckett was a prominent figure from Brooklyn, New York, who made significant contributions to journalism, public relations, and literature. Duckett was a newspaper writer at the Pittsburgh Courier and Amsterdam News before serving in the US Army for four years. After the military, he studied public relations at Columbia University. Duckett held various editorial roles, including work with the Associated Negro Press International and as an associate editor for influential publications like Ebony and Negro Digest.
Duckett also assisted Dr. Martin Luther King in writing both "Why We Can't Wait," a book on the civil rights movement, and "My Dream," a syndicated newspaper column. He collaborated with Jackie Robinson on the baseball player's autobiography, ''I Never Had It Made.'' He also wrote "Breakthrough to the Big League," a baseball-related book for young people; "Changing of the Guard," about Black political figures; and "Raps," a collection of poetry. He operated a public relations company that represented major Black entertainment and political figures. The poems he wrote as a student were included in Langston Hughes's anthology of Black poetry.
He founded the magazine Equal Opportunities in 1969, which was notable for being the first career periodical specifically aimed at minority college graduates. Alfred Duckett, who collaborated on books and speeches, including for the 1963 March on Washington, died of cancer on October 1, 1973, in the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. He was 67 years old and lived in Chicago and New York. He is survived by a daughter, Carolyn Holman, and two sisters, Ruth Duckett Gibbs and Dorothy Duckett Joseph.
