Chet Fuller, a pioneering journalist and author has passed away, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was 72.

As an acclaimed investigative reporter, Fuller helped cover Wayne Williams and the Atlanta Child Murders and the mayoral tenures of Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young. He became assistant city editor in 1978.

He won the Green Eyeshade Award, a prestigious journalism prize in 1979 for "A Black Man's Diary," a 10-part series based on three months of traveling the South as an unemployed Black man looking for work.  The series was syndicated by the New York Times and published in more than 500 newspapers worldwide. In 1981, his reporting was turned into the book, I Hear Them Calling My Name.

Fuller became an editorial writer and columnist in 1983 and was named assistant managing editor in 1989. His weekly column, Urban Spotlight, helped usher in a new era of Black journalism that pushed the boundaries. 

In 1998, Fuller retired from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after 26 years.

Although he retired from AJC, he went on to work for The Atlanta Daily World and was editor of Clayton News Daily and the Henry Daily Herald before his final retirement in 2012.

Among the many awards that he received in his remarkable career were the Michelle Clark Journalism Award, United Press International’s Frank Frosch Memorial Award, and the Gwendolyn Brooks Literary Award for poetry.

We at EBONY extend our prayers and deepest condolences to the family and friends of Chet Fuller.