As he celebrates his 89th birthday and retirement from The Washington Post, the esteemed alumnus and Pulitzer Prize winner reflects on the impact Howard University has had on his career — and vice versa.
On a bright Monday morning, Colbert I. King (B.A. ’61, DHL ’18), often called “Colby” by loved ones, sat across from me in grand spirits: feisty, combative, a touch wistful, and unmistakably sharp for a man fresh off his 89th birthday. It was a family affair: His wife Gwendolyn Stewart King (B.A. ’62, DHL ’18) and their daughter Allison joined the conversation, chiming in with family lore and exciting plans. This past June, King announced his retirement from The Washington Post, but over nearly two hours of conversation, it remains clear why the man many affectionately call Colby became one of the foremost editorialists in American journalism.
I HAD TIES TO HOWARD AND WAS ACCEPTED, AND IT WAS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED.
months at Howard, he was already familiarizing himself with the stacks at the Library of Congress, completing a research paper on the impact of religion in Black communities. “She grabbed a hold of me and found my interest in writing and composition,” King said. “It was the best grounding I ever had, academically and professionally.” Howard’s unique vantage point widened his aperture. He describes a ROTC summer camp as a first sustained encounter with white peers from other colleges. While they had read the same textbooks, his white colleagues seemed to lack an understanding of the contemporary political movements actively shaping society’s future. “They didn’t know anything about a Thurgood Marshall,” he lamented. “We were learning about Pan-Africanism then. My white contemporaries knew nothing about it. We had professors teaching it, people who actually experienced it.” Names and anecdotes cascade like it was yesterday: Bernard Fall lecturing on Indochina and international relations without notes; Thurgood Marshall and his team practicing Supreme Court arguments at Howard Law; Patrice Lumumba’s delegation stopping at Howard, French-speaking students drafted as translators. “Howard was a place where they could come, a safe haven,” King said. “We were a Mecca.”
A King at The Mecca
King’s story begins a few miles from where we sat: a native Washingtonian born “over the Georgetown, Foggy Bottom area,” a product of the preeminent Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (America’s first public high school for Black students), and if fate had followed a coach’s recruiting efforts, a potential collegiate football player outside the District. He had offers to other colleges, he recalled, but the family couldn’t afford the freight. “I had ties to Howard and was accepted, and it was the best thing that ever happened,” he said. King majored in government, and the department’s leadership met him with an earnestness about that selection. Within days of arriving, he said, Professor Robert Martin gathered the entering government majors to ask why they were there and what they intended to do with the discipline. “We were nurtured,” King remembered. “When we hit our junior year and got into all of our [major] courses, we knew what we were walking into, who our professors were. We knew who was strong on the international side, who was strong [domestically], and the experts in state and local politics government. And they taught to a T.” King also took a placement exam upon his enrollment and was placed in English 101 — “remedial English,” he jokingly calls it — where he says he first fell in love with writing, in large part to his professor, Marie Buncombe. Those first
COLBERT KING HAS PLENTY LEFT TO SAY by LARRY SANDERS LEGACY
Colbert, the Public Servant
He and Gwendolyn met at Howard and wed the summer of 1961, a month after he was commissioned a second lieutenant and received his bachelor’s degree — while she still had to complete her final undergraduate year. Gwendolyn’s memory of those years is pragmatic and warm: The community around
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Howard Magazine
Fall 2025
Fall 2025
Howard Magazine
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