Mercer University’s Newton Chapel will host the third annual Jordan Massee Lecture in Southern History and Culture Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. featuring a conversation with journalist and media executive Tom Johnson.
 
The event is free and open to the public.
 
Johnson, a Macon native, graduated from Lanier High School while working for the Macon Telegraph. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and master’s degree from Harvard Business School before serving as a White House Fellow during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
 
Johnson continued to work for the former president in Texas and later became publisher of the Dallas Times Herald. He would go on to be named president and publisher of the Los Angeles Times before becoming president of CNN in 1990, a role in which he served until retiring in 2001.
 
Johnson has been a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors and Rockefeller Foundation Board of Trustees and is a long-time member of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees.
 
The Jordan Massee Lecture in Southern History and Culture is named for the Macon native who brought his friend Tennessee Williams to Macon where Williams finished writing “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” and based the character Big Daddy on the senior Mr. Massee. Massee was also visited in Macon by his cousin Carson McCullers.