Word Warrior

Called “marvelously written and completely captivating,” this 2016 Phillis Wheatley Book Awards finalist documents the life of gifted broadcast dramatist, journalist and activist, Richard Durham. Artists like Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Oscar Brown, Jr. and Studs Terkel – along with boxing champion Muhammad Ali and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington – collaborated with and sang Durham’s praises.

And Durham’s lyrical, politically outspoken and compelling dramas earned him posthumous induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007.

Throughout Durham’s lifetime (1917-1984) this Mississippi-born, Chicago-based African American writer used his eloquent literary voice to fight for freedom, equality and justice for all. He may be best known for his award-winning radio series, Destination Freedom. It aired on NBC affiliate WMAQ from 1948 to 1950, taking listeners on a weekly, half hour long journey through the lives and accomplishments of African American history makers and heroes – a truly unique series on a medium that usually negatively stereotyped black citizens in a highly discriminatory America.

Durham also earned honors as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Defender, and he lent his writing and organizational mastery to the Chicago labor union movement. During the 1960s, he edited the Nation of Islam’s Muhammad Speaks newspaper and served as the lead writer for Bird of the Iron Feather – a pioneering public television series about black life. Durham traveled the world with Muhammad Ali in order to write the champ’s 1975 autobiography, The Greatest. And Durham was a valued speechwriter/strategist for the volatile yet successful campaign of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor.

Richard Durham was a versatile writer and a complicated, influential soul destined for creative genius and freedom.

Word Warrior was one of the theroot.com’s Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 2015 written by journalists-of-color.

To order your copy of the book, visit the University of Illinois Press website, your favorite bookseller or pick up the Audiobook version of Word Warrior by clicking Here.

Below are photos of my first view of the book, posing with Durham’s wife Mrs. Clarice Davis Durham, and Mrs. Durham with her son Mark.

Praise for Word Warrior

Readers not familiar with the writer, radio producer and journalist Richard Durham will question how that could be so after reading Word Warrior. In Sonja Williams’ magnificently detailed and well-rounded study, Durham exerts an indelible presence in the intertwined histories of radio, television, the civil rights and labour movements, The Nation of Islam, boxing and much of the history of mid-twentieth-century Chicago arts, culture and politics…Like most successful biographies, this one immerses readers in its subject’s life deeply by making use of multiple primary and secondary sources, achieving an almost novelistic omniscient narrative style in places.

Erin L. Berry-McCrea and Jason Loviglio, Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, Volume 16, Number 1, 2018

Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom, by Sonja Williams, is a soaring, essential, generous addition to our historical literature.

Williams depicts Durham in the colorfully vivid contrasts of a dashiki. He was a committed writer, who often missed deadlines. He was a gifted collaborator, who failed to follow through. He was an effective political writer, whose courage surpassed those who would use his words… If ever there was a character worthy of a movie narrative to blend his mosaic edges, it is Richard Durham. And the best sources to get to know this important American figure are Word Warrior and Sonja Williams.

Thomas A. Mascaro, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 94, Issue 2, June 2017    

“Word Warrior…was marvelously written and completely captivating…Durham was a rare person to be sure and your portrait of him did him justice. I’m hoping that it will be made into a feature film or documentary. It deserves to be experienced by a broad public.”

Michael C. Keith, author of Norman Corwin’s ‘One World Flight’: The Lost Journal of Radio’s Greatest Writer

“Richard Durham was a post-World War II literary action figure. This biography of him, written by a professor in the Howard University School of Communication who became captivated by his work, is well up to the task of showcasing Durham’s exploits…By fleshing out Durham and his career, Williams rescues this mass media adventurer of the segregated and modern eras from the fate of remaining a one-paragraph entry in the history of US black media.”

Todd Steven Burroughs, American Journalism, Vol. 33, Issue 1, 2016

Williams’s Word Warrior is an engrossing, at times poetic excavation of one man’s dealing with life and learning as an African American man. Durham answered the call to arms through the artistry of storytelling, advocacy, agency, and learning. He swirled those elements together throughout his inquisitive life.

Ida Jones, JHistory, H-Net Online Reviews, 2016

Williams does a sophisticated job of letting the reader in on Durham’s personal life through the use of interviews with close friends and family members, including Durham’s one-time editor Toni Morrison, close friend Oscar Brown Jr. and son Mark…[T]his highly readable narrative offers rich insights into a major contributor to Chicago’s civil rights and labor movements.

Carrie Teresa, Journalism History, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2016

With this book, Williams (Howard Univ.) rescues a forgotten but important voice in the Civil Rights Movement.  Whether Durham (1917–84) was writing poetry, reporting, or creating radio and television scripts, his subjects remained the same: justice for the African American community and the injustice of segregation…Williams details all this in this well-written analytical profile of this important, versatile writer.

D.O. Cullen, Choice Connect, Vol. 53 No. 9, 2016

“Williams’ book is a major contribution to media studies. Williams, who has won three Peabody awards for her work with the Smithsonian and National Public Radio, addressed Durham’s life as an example of how African Americans navigated substantial challenges in the media industry…Hopefully, Williams’ description of multiple social phenomena, packaged as a biography of an important civil rights figure in Chicago, will pack a strong enough punch to set a precedent for similar work.”

Josh Shepperd, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, Vol. 23, Issue 1, 2016

“The enigmatic life of writer and radio dramatist Richard Durham has, for years, cried out for probing and understanding. Sonja D. Williams has answered the call with this fiercely smart and important book. It is an important achievement.”

Wil Haygood, author of The Butler: A Witness to History

“Sonja Williams’ exhaustively researched biography of Richard Durham sheds valuable light on an inexcusably neglected historical figure. Throughout his many lives, including activism, writing, and broadcasting, Durham demonstrated the importance of narrative in the struggle for justice. As Williams proves, the right to tell the story is a critical part of the quest for equality and power–and those who fought for that right should be remembered with gratitude.”

Jabari Asim, author of What Obama Means:…For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future

“Sonja Williams artfully links broadcasting pioneer Richard Durham to the key social, cultural, and political movements of mid-Twentieth-century America. In Word Warrior, Durham’s fierce spirit, strategic mind, and creative genius leap to life as he navigates the streets, boardrooms, and radio studios of Chicago. Without this book, this very important story surely would have been lost.”

A’Lelia Bundles, author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker

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