Eugene Meyer

Eugene L. Meyer is an author and journalist who writes about both historical and current events, reviews books and contributes features to the Washington Independent Review of Books. He is the author of four books, including Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army and Chesapeake Country, a coffee table book on the Chesapeake Bay region.

Meyer has been widely published in regional and national magazines and was for more than three decades a reporter and editor at The Washington Post. Since leaving the Post in 2004, Meyer has garnered 18 awards for his work and has had more than 50 bylines in The New York Times. His first journalism job was as Washington bureau librarian for the old New York Herald Tribune, where he got to tag along with a White House reporter and watch the 1964 Civil Rights Act being signed into law. He posts on SubStack and blogs at www.eugenelmeyer.com.

Articles by this Author

I Watched LBJ Sign the Civil Rights Act, Fall 2025 | Vol. 70, No. 4

The author was a press researcher in 1964 when he tagged along to watch Lyndon B. Johnson sign the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawing discrimination.

A Day When Hope Died, Winter 2024 | Vol. 69, No. 1

In an instant on November 22, 1963, morning in America became mourning in America.

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, Winter 2022 | Vol. 67, No. 1

In his latest memoir, Carl Bernstein retraces the path of his early journalism career before he went on to make history at the Washington Post.

"WEB ONLY STORIES" BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR

John Brown’s Black Raiders Executed

“I am now in a few hours to start on a journey from which no traveler returns,” wrote Copeland to his family. On December 16, 1859, two of John Brown's black comrades, John Anthony Copeland and Shields Green, were hanged in Charlestown, Virginia (now West Virginia) for their role in the raid on…

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