Patterson wrote a signed newspaper editorial every day for eight years . An editorial he wrote in 1963 , '' A Flower for the Graves '' , was considered so moving that he was asked to read it on live television by Walter Cronkite , the leading news anchorman of the era . The editorial was in response to the notorious church bombing in Birmingham , Alabama which killed four black girls , all under the age of 15 . He was once approached by the FBI , who wanted him to write an article about Martin Luther King Jr 's alleged infidelities which they had uncovered through wiretaps . Patterson told them " We 're not a peephole journal . We do n't print that kind of stuff . " Patterson was appointed managing editor of '' The Washington Post '' in 1968 . After the Nixon administration had blocked the '' New York Times '' from the continued publication of the '' Pentagon Papers '' , which revealed how President Lyndon Johnson had withheld information about the progress of the nation 's waging of the Vietnam War from the United States Congress , he was responsible for the '' Post '' 's publication of the documents
church bombing
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
Eugene Patterson