Al Burt
Encyclopedia
Al Burt was a widely beloved Florida author and longtime journalist with The Miami Herald. He served as a sports writer, news reporter, editor, editorial writer and columnist.
Burt reported from Washington to Latin America and the Caribbean and throughout Florida. Before working with the Miami Herald he had positions with the Atlanta Journal & the Jacksonville Journal. He was seriously wounded by "friendly fire" while covering the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965.
For many years he wrote a back-page column for the Miami Herald Sunday magazine on interesting people and places around Florida that drew him quite a following. Florida author David Nolan
said he used to buy the Herald just so he could read Al Burt's column. Many of those columns were collected in book form in Becalmed in the Mullet Latitudes (1984), Al Burt's Florida (1997), and Tropic of Cracker (1999).
A scholar and advocate of the Florida Cracker, Burt was a longtime trustee of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Society—an organization that celebrated the life and work of the Pulitzer prizewinning novelist who gave the Crackers dignity in American literature. He lived for many years in the picturesque historic town of Melrose, Florida, until declining health dictated a move to the larger city of Jacksonville not long before his death.
in 1949. He wrote for the Independent Florida Alligator when he was attending UF as an undergraduate.
Burt reported from Washington to Latin America and the Caribbean and throughout Florida. Before working with the Miami Herald he had positions with the Atlanta Journal & the Jacksonville Journal. He was seriously wounded by "friendly fire" while covering the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965.
For many years he wrote a back-page column for the Miami Herald Sunday magazine on interesting people and places around Florida that drew him quite a following. Florida author David Nolan
David Nolan
David Nolan may refer to:* David Nolan , co-founder of the United States Libertarian Party* David Nolan , American author* David Nolan , British author of I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed The World...
said he used to buy the Herald just so he could read Al Burt's column. Many of those columns were collected in book form in Becalmed in the Mullet Latitudes (1984), Al Burt's Florida (1997), and Tropic of Cracker (1999).
A scholar and advocate of the Florida Cracker, Burt was a longtime trustee of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American author who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie, also known as The...
Society—an organization that celebrated the life and work of the Pulitzer prizewinning novelist who gave the Crackers dignity in American literature. He lived for many years in the picturesque historic town of Melrose, Florida, until declining health dictated a move to the larger city of Jacksonville not long before his death.
Education
Burt graduated from the University of Florida College of Journalism and CommunicationsUniversity of Florida College of Journalism and Communications
The College of Journalism and Communications is a college of the University of Florida. It comprises four departments:*Department of Journalism *Department of Telecommunications *Department of Advertising...
in 1949. He wrote for the Independent Florida Alligator when he was attending UF as an undergraduate.