Obituaries

Thomas Morgan IIIJournalist

Thomas Morgan III, 56, a former reporter and editor with The Washington Post and the New York Times and a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, died Dec. 24 in Southampton, Mass., where he was visiting a friend. He lived in Brooklyn.

He had lived with HIV, which developed into AIDS, for 20 years. He died after a heart attack.

Mr. Morgan was the NABJ's eighth president and the first who was openly gay. During his tenure from 1989 to 1991, the NABJ expanded its student projects to include a broadcast component and established "short courses."

The organization also created the NABJ Hall of Fame while he was president and expanded the Ethel Payne Fellowship for black journalists to do research in Africa.

"He was passionate about journalism and about NABJ," said Vanessa Williams, a Washington Post editor who also served as NABJ president. "He taught us much about tolerance, fairness and courage."

Mr. Morgan was born in St. Louis. After graduating from high school, he accepted an ROTC scholarship to the University of Missouri, where he received an undergraduate degree in journalism in 1973. He served as an Air Force information officer until 1975 and also worked as a social aide in the Nixon and Ford White Houses.

"Tom Morgan was part of an extraordinary group of African American journalists who came out of St. Louis in the '70s and the '80s -- people like Gerald Boyd, George Curry, Patricia Camp Thompson, Marcia Davis, Sheila Rule, Ken Cooper," said Milton Coleman, a deputy managing editor at The Post. "They went on to work for some of the best news organizations in the nation, assumed leadership positions and had an enormous impact on this business."

Mr. Morgan worked for the Miami Herald before joining The Post in 1977. He was a reporter and editor of the newspaper's District Weekly section. Coleman described him as "a great writer, editor and a superb finder and teller of compelling stories who helped to change for the better The Post's coverage of the city and its people, from the ground up."

He joined the New York Times in 1983 and worked as a reporter, editor and employee in the human resources department there. In 1989-90, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

Mr. Morgan retired in 1995, primarily to concentrate on combating AIDS. He devoted much of his free time to volunteer work as an HIV-AIDS awareness advocate and as a board member for several organizations, including the Gay Men's Health Crisis in Manhattan.

"He was incredibly stubborn, which is the only way he could have gotten through everything he went through with AIDS," said Sheila Stainback, a former New York TV reporter and longtime friend. "He was caring, incredibly supportive -- and stubborn."

Survivors include his partner of 23 years, Tom Ciano of Brooklyn, and three brothers.