on the Robert Kennedy assassination and then reported from the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, where anti-war protesters and police rioted in the streets. In 1969, he was made the New York Times Urban Affairs National Correspondent and reported on city riots, anti-Vietnam demonstrations, and college campus upheavals. During the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Herbers was a White House correspondent for the Times. He covered the Watergate events, the front-page “Nixon Resigns” article was his, and he wrote Nixon’s obituary. Herbers was appointed the Times' assistant national editor in 1975, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1977, and national Washington correspondent in 1979. From 1979 to 1987, Herbers was The New York Times national correspondent, and he traveled the country reporting on national trends in politics, government, and social movements. One of his specialties was demographics and changes in the population. He retired from The New York Times in 1987. Later Years From 1987–1990, Herbers was a visiting instructor at Princeton University and the University of Maryland, teaching seminars on politics and the press. He served as writer and columnist for Governing magazine for three years and was appointed a member of and consultant to the National Commission on State and Local Public Service. He also wrote a memoir, Deep South Dispatch: Memoir of a Civil Rights Journalist, which was published posthumously by the University Press of Mississippi in April 2018. Death Herbers died on March 17, 2017, at the age of 93 in Washington, D.C. His wife, Betty Herbers, died six weeks prior to his death. Personal life Herbers was married to Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Wood Herbers in 1952. He and Betty lived in Bethesda, Maryland, and they are survived by four daughters, six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Impact In The Race Beat, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the press and the civil rights movement, Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff say that Herbers as far back as 1952 was "breaking new ground in his coverage [of Negro leaders and their activities]. [As] bureau chief, John applied a simple standard—newsworthiness—in deciding what stories to assign. Race was never a reason not to cover a story. That simple declaration set him apart." John Lewis, U.S. representative from Georgia, and civil rights pioneer, remarked, "I got to know John when he was a reporter. To me, he was more than a reporter. Smart and gifted, he used his pen