John Henry McCray (1910–1987) was a journalist, newspaper publisher, politician, civil rights activist, and college academic administrator in the United States.
An African American, he worked at some of the country's most prominent Black newspapers including the Lighthouse and Informer newspaper of South Carolina (from 1941 to 1954); the Charleston Messenger; the Pittsburgh Courier as the Carolina editor (from 1960 to 1962); the Baltimore Afro-American (from 1954 to 1960); The Chicago Defender (from 1962 to 1963); and the Atlanta Daily World (from February to September 1964).
[7] McCray is part of a mural, The Pursuit of Opportunity: Celebrating African American Business, by artist Ija Charles, located at 1401 Main Street in Columbia, South Carolina.
[9] McCray is included in Sid Bedingfield's book, Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina, 1935–1965 (published in 2017).
[10][11] In 2020, the National Park Service gave a three-year grant to Allen University located in Columbia to study McCray.