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Ben Burns (August 25, 1913 – January 29, 2000) was a pioneering editor of black publications (including the ''Chicago Daily Defender'', ''Ebony'', ''Jet'' and ''Negro Digest'') and a public relations executive in Chicago. He was a “top executive editor” for the Johnson Publishing Company〔Jessie Parkhurst Guzman, editor, ''Negro Year Book: A Review of Events Affecting Negro Life'', 1952, New York: Wm. H. Wise & Co., Inc., p. 44.〕 who became so well known as a “black newspaperman”〔Ben Burns, (''Nitty Gritty: A White Editor in Black Journalism'' ), Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996, p. 3.〕 – even though he was white and Jewish – that he was invited to submit his biography for inclusion in ''Who’s Who in Colored America''.〔''Nitty Gritty'', p. 50.〕 ==Early life== Burns was born Benjamin Bernstein〔Allyson Hobbs, (“Guide to the Ben Burns Collection, 1939-1999,” ) Chicago Public Library, 2006.〕 in Chicago in 1913 to Polish Jewish parents, Alexander and Frieda Bernstein. At the time of his birth at Michael Reese Hospital, the family lived on Chicago’s Near West Side.〔Letter, Ben Burns, “Excellent piece,” ''Chicago Jewish Star'', September 13, 1996, p. 4.〕 Burns grew up in the slums of Chicago.〔''Nitty Gritty'', p. 38.〕 His father was a house painter originally from Łódź.〔 His mother was born in Warsaw.〔Ben Burns, “An Atheist at Auschwitz,” ''Chicago Jewish Star'', April 19, 1996, p. 7.〕 In the latter 19th Century, Warsaw and Lodz were Poland’s two largest cities, and were home to the country’s two largest Jewish communities.〔Shmuel Krakowski, “Lodz,” ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', New York: Macmillan, 1990, vol. 3, p. 900.〕 His mother divorced Alexander when Burns was a year old,〔Burns wrote that his father “abandoned me when I was a baby, and I never knew him until I was ten years old” (''Nitty Gritty'', p. 38).〕 and married Nathan Denison, a Chicago produce dealer.〔''Nitty Gritty'', p. 57.〕 Esther Burns’ parents also lived in Chicago.〔''Nitty Gritty'', p. 119.〕 Burns spent his teen years in New York’s West Side,〔 graduating in 1930 from James Monroe High School. He attended New York University, where he so enjoyed working on the ''NYU Daily News'' that when it was shut down in 1933 he decided not to finish his senior year. Instead, he returned to Chicago, enrolling in the Northwestern University journalism program, from which he graduated in 1934.〔''Nitty Gritty'', pp. 57-60.〕 In 1935, he joined the Young Communist League, in part because of its reputed opposition to the emergence of Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitism, in part because of its social positions. He maintained a connection to the party until he was expelled from it in 1948.〔''Nitty Gritty'', pp. 106-7.〕 Burns married Esther Stern on November 28, 1937. The couple, married for over 62 years, had three children. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ben Burns」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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