WATERVILLE (AP) – Studs Terkel, whose writing and broadcasting since the Great Depression have given ordinary Americans he calls the “uncelebrated” a voice, was being honored Sunday for his contributions to journalism.

The 92-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner was not able to attend the formalities at Colby College, a private school which has been presenting the Elijah Parish Lovejoy award to outstanding journalists for more than a half century.

The award is named for Colby graduate Lovejoy, who was murdered in 1837 while defending his press against a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Ill.

Terkel was recuperating from a fall and was not able to attend Sunday’s presentation, but Chicago author Alex Kotlowitz planned to accept the award on Terkel’s behalf.

Terkel was a columnist for the Chicago Sunday Times and became well-known for his radio programs and books. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and was active in the civil rights movement. But he is best known as an oral historian. Among his books is “Working” in which Americans he interviews talk about their jobs.

His other books include “Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession,” which came out in 1992, and “Coming of Age,” recollections of men and women 70 and older.

Terkel’s subjects talk about their own hopes and tell stories that might give others hope in “Hope Dies Last,” which came out last year.

In March, Terkel received National Book Critics Circle lifetime achievement prize.

Lovejoy winners are chosen by a committee of distinguished newspaper editors.

Last year’s winners were Steve Mills and Maurice Possley, Chicago Tribune reporters whose stories about prosecutorial misconduct and flawed death penalty cases prompted led the Illinois governor to place a moratorium on all executions in the state.