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Juan Williams

 

journalist; writer

Personal Information

Born Juan Williams on April 10, 1954, in Colon, Panama; son of Rogelio L., an accountant, and Alma Geraldine (Elias), a secretary; married Susan Delise July 1, 1978; children: Antonio Mason, Regan Almina
Memberships: Haverford College Board of Trustees; Aspen Institute of Communications and Society program; Washington Journalism Center; New York Civil Rights Coalition.

Career

The Washington Post, columnist and reporter, 1976-99;, Fox News, anchor, 1997-, Fox News Sunday, panelist, 1997-; National Public Radio, radio show host, 2000-01; America's Black Forum, host, 1996-.

Life's Work

Juan Williams' name and face are easily recognized in political journalism, radio, and television. An award-winning journalist, he has been a national and White House correspondent for the Washington Post, with his work appearing in that publication for 23 years. His articles have also been published in several national magazines, including Newsweek, Fortune, Ebony, Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic. His personal interest is civil rights and race relations, and he has authored two books: the best-selling Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 and Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. Williams has also written television documentaries, on of which earned him an Emmy Award. A sought-after speaker, he has addressed groups throughout the nation, at colleges, corporations, trade associations, citizen associations, and civil right groups, often speaking on diversity and race issues. He has appeared regularly on Fox News Sunday as a panelist, has been a rotating host of American's Black Forum, and has had regular appearances on Nightline, Washington Week in Review, Crossfire, The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, and Capitol Gang Sunday. He also hosted Talk of the Nation, a National Public Radio call-in talk show.

Juan Williams was born to Rogelio L. and Alma Geraldine Williams on April 10, 1954 in Colon, Panama. His father was an accountant, and his mother worked as a secretary. He won a scholarship to Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York, a Quaker school. Looking back on his experience at Oakwood Friends School thirty years later, as he spoke at Haverford College about education during the national convention of the Friends Council on Education, he told the audience of how attending the private school had made a difference in his life. He went on to Haverford College after graduating from Oakwood. Williams credited his experiences at Oakwood with allowing him to exceed the vision he had held for himself. His speech to the Friends Council on Education discussed diversity in the Quaker schools, commenting on the fact the he was one of few blacks attending at the time. Williams majored in philosophy at Haverford College in Philadelphia and graduated in 1976 with a bachelor's degree.

Williams began his career in journalism by interning at the Washington Post in 1976. He was then hired full-time, and as a journalist for the Washington Post he was an editorial writer, national correspondent, columnist, and White House reporter. He spent 23 years there.

It was while covering White House affairs during the Reagan administration that Williams became interested in civil rights. Among other issues, President Reagan, who originally opposed the idea, presided over the declaration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. When Williams spoke to students at the Reynolds School of Journalism in 2001 he was quoted in the Zephyr as saying "There was a lot of tension between black and white reporters. There was a lot of the tension in society in the newsroom." He said that journalism had allowed him to move into white-dominated areas, and that when he served as a White House reporter earlier in his career he was "a novelty" at the time. "Here was a black man talking about events at the White House." He added that racial issues are still present within the media today.

In 1987 Williams' book, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 was published by Viking. Each chapter was devoted to specific civil rights events during those years, such as the school desegregation case in Topeka, Kansas of Brown v. Board of Education. This was the case that brought first black Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall fame. At the time, Marshall was an attorney for the NAACP. Other events covered in the book include the march on Washington in 1963, the desegregation of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in 1957, and the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The book was a companion volume to the six-part public television series of the same name, and traced events of the civil rights movement from its start, including various facets of the movement, many of the people involved, as well as the changes that resulted. Williams also incorporated numerous interviews he had conducted with the people who had been involved in the movements, including many lesser-known, but equally important, people who struggled for equal rights. The book was praised for its truthful reality, and became a bestseller.

Williams hosted Talk of the Nation, a national call-in radio program, for 18 months in 2000-2001. As part of the program, he visited towns around America and held town hall meetings; the meetings became part of the National Public Radio series called The Changing Face of America. Its purpose was to discuss the changing society and culture of the United States at the millennium. Williams told journalism students at the Reynolds School of Journalism at University of Nevada Reno, "The goal from the start has been to look at America at the turn of the century. What it was really like--key cultural, political, economic and social trends."

When Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas was defending sexual harassment charges in 1995, Williams was supportive of him in his writings and on television. He also defended Thomas when Williams appeared on Crossfire as a co-host to Pat Buchanan. But Williams found himself the subject of news stories and facing verbal sexual harassment charges from female Post employees. The charges resulted in disciplinary actions and an apology from Williams.

Williams took time off from his duties with the Washington Post to write Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. Published by Times Books in 1998, reviews of the work were mixed, but generally good. Williams studied the more personal side of Thurgood Marshall and was granted many interviews by him over a six-month period during 1989. Marshall served as a Supreme Court Justice from 1967 to 1991; he died two years after stepping down. Marshall had led a life steeped in the civil rights movement: he fought racial discrimination many times as lead attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during 1938-1961. His best-known case was the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in which he was victorious in helping de-segregate schools. He went on to serve as federal appeals court judge and Solicitor General before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Johnson. It is during his years on the court that Williams' biography is said to be the weakest, owing to Williams' own weakness in jurisprudence.

In America, reviewer Daniel Levine said, "After Marshall became a judge, Williams seems to have less interest in him. The cases, even important ones, are dealt with hastily, and, unfortunately, very few of Marshall's vigorous dissents are described. Williams is more original in filling in some bureaucratic dimensions of Marshall's life." In National Review, John O. McGinnis wrote, "Juan Williams's book is most successful in recreating the vanished world of Marshall's upbringing. Williams draws a picture of a community that maintained the quiet dignity of self reliance even in the face of economic hardship and social prejudice." Williams was quoted as having told Brian Lamb in the Duquesne University publication, The Times, "This was at the end of his career, the end of his life, and it was a rich time and one in which he was willing to talk. It has been a great gift to me." And although the book was criticized as being thin on Marshall's Supreme Court years, that lack has been credited to Williams' difficulty in obtaining certain records. Williams' support of Clarence Thomas, who succeeded Marshall, resulted in the NAACP Legal Defense Fund barring him from the research materials he needed to fill out the biography.

Williams has written several documentaries, including his critically acclaimed Politics--The New Black Power, and A. Philip Randolph--For Jobs and Freedom. His From Riot to Recovery won an Emmy Award in 1989.

Awards

Selected: Front Page Award, Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, 1979; Education Writers of America, 1979; Columnist of the Year, Washingtonian, 1982; Emmy Award, 1989; Outstanding memorial Book Award, Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States; Best National Book Award, Time magazines; honorary doctorates, Haverford College and State University of New York.

Works

Selected writings

  • Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, Viking, 1987.
  • Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, Times Books, 1998.

Further Reading

Books

  • Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize, 1954-1965, Viking, New York, 1987.
Periodicals
  • America, April 10, 1999, p. 32.
  • The Duquesne University Times, March 20, 2000.
  • National Review, December 7, 1998, p. 62.
  • New York Amsterdam News, August 30, 2001, p. 35.
  • Newsweek, October 28, 1991, p. 33.
  • Time, October 28, 1991, p. 30.
On-line
  • America's Black Forum, http://www. Americasblackforum.cm/meetthehosts.asp
  • The Brown Daily Herald, www.theherald.org/issues/021999/writer.f.html
  • Council For American Private Education (CAPE), http://www.capenet.org/Out5- 99.html
  • Columbia Journalism Review, http://www.cjr.org/year/91/6/d_l.asp
  • National Public Radio (NPR), http://www.npr.org/about/people/bios/jwilliams.html
  • Tucson Weekly, http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/12-17-95/curr3.htm
  • University of New Hampshire, http://www.unh.edu.mlk-day.html
  • Zephyr, http://zephyr.unr.edu/arts/archives/art_howell_williams.html
  • Library of Congress, http://lcweb.loc.gov/today/pr/1999/99-184.html

— Sandy J. Stiefer

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Juan Williams

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Juan Williams

Juan Williams at the 2011 Texas Book Festival.
Born 10 April 1954 (1954-04-10) (age 57)
Colón, Panama
Education Haverford College
Occupation Author, journalist
Notable credit(s) CNN Crossfire
Fox News Sunday
National Public Radio

Juan Williams (born April 10, 1954) is an American journalist and political analyst for Fox News Channel. He also writes for several newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and has been published in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Time. He was a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR) from 1999 until October 2010. At The Washington Post for 23 years, Williams has worked as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, White House correspondent and national correspondent.

Williams is the author of Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (1988),[1] a companion to the documentary series of the same name about the African-American Civil Rights Movement;Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary (2000), a biography of Thurgood Marshall, the first black American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States; and Enough (2006), which was inspired by Bill Cosby's speech at the NAACP gala, and deals with Williams' critique of black leaders in America, and as he puts it the "culture of failure."[2] Williams has received an Emmy Award and critical praise for his television documentary work and he has won several awards for investigative journalism and his opinion columns.

Contents

Early years

Williams attended Haverford College, where he graduated with a B.A. in philosophy in 1976.[3]

Career

Washington Post

Some days after Williams wrote a column defending Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas against sworn testimony by Anita Hill charging sexual harassment by Thomas, it was revealed that several female employees of the Post had filed sexual harassment charges against Williams.[4] The paper took disciplinary action against Williams and published an apology by him.[5] On November 2, 1991, Williams wrote: "It pained me to learn during the investigation that I had offended some of you. I have said so repeatedly in the last few weeks, and repeat here: some of my verbal conduct was wrong, I now know that, and I extend my sincerest apology to those whom I offended."[6]

National Public Radio

Williams joined NPR in 2000 as host of the daily afternoon talk show Talk of the Nation.[3] He then served as senior national correspondent for NPR.[7] As a result of Williams' commentary on the Fox News Channel, NPR's President and CEO Vivian Schiller requested that Fox stop identifying him as an NPR host in 2009. NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard maintained that: "Williams tends to speak one way on NPR and another on Fox."[8] Williams' comment on January 26, 2009, to Bill O’Reilly and Mary Katharine Ham, while appearing on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor, triggered the move.[8]

NPR terminated his contract on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, two days after he made remarks on The O'Reilly Factor.[9] He had commented, "Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."[10] According to NPR, the remarks were "inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR." As to the reason for the termination of Williams' contract, NPR’s President and CEO Vivian Schiller offered the following comment: "News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts..."[11] On October 21, 2010, Schiller told an audience at the Atlanta Press Club that Williams' feelings about Muslims should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist—take your pick."[12] Schiller later apologized stating, "I spoke hastily and I apologize to Juan and others for my thoughtless remark."[13]

Some observers have questioned whether NPR actually fired Williams for making the comments on Fox News, as opposed to making them in another forum.[14] William Saletan of Slate.com compared the Williams situation to that of Shirley Sherrod, saying that both Sherrod and Williams had their words taken out of context in a way that made them appear racist and led to the loss of their jobs, except that Williams was victimized by liberals, rather than conservatives as in Sherrod's case.[15] Saletan said that while Williams' confessed fears of Muslims were "unsettling", the context was Williams' argument that such fears should not be used to curtail the rights of Muslims or anyone else, and that Williams consistently argued that Muslims in general should not be blamed for the terrorist activities of Muslim extremists.[15] NPR has been criticized by Williams and others for practicing a double standard in the firing, compared to their not firing Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenberg and other NPR reporters and analysts for their opinionated statements.[16][17]

Fox News Channel

He has been a Fox News Contributor since 1997.[14] He has appeared on Special Report with Bret Baier and FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace. He also regularly appears on The O'Reilly Factor and has served as a guest host in O'Reilly's absence.[18] After NPR announced his termination from their network in October 2010, Fox News offered him a new $2 million (a "considerable" raise[19]), three-year contract and an expanded role at their network that includes a regular guest-host role Friday nights on The O'Reilly Factor.[20]

Following his firing from NPR, Williams appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and discussed his thoughts on how his role at Fox played into NPR's decision: "I don't fit in their box. I'm not predictable black liberal. You [O'Reilly] were exactly right when you said you know what this comes down to. They were looking for a reason to get rid of me because I'm appearing on Fox News. They don't want me talking to you."[20]

Television

Williams is the recipient of an Emmy Award for his work in television documentary writing and has earned critical praise for a series of television documentaries including Politics: The New Black Power, A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom, Civil Rights and The Press, Riot to Recovery and Dying for Healthcare.[18]

Williams' 1988 book, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–65, was written with the Blackside production team[21] as a companion to the first season of the PBS series Eyes on the Prize. His 2003 book, This Far by Faith, is also a companion to a PBS series.[22]

Williams is a contributor to a number of national magazines, including Fortune, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Ebony magazine, TIME and GQ and frequents a wide range of television programs including ABC's Nightline, Washington Week on PBS, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.[18]

Williams has spoken at the Smithsonian’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended legal segregation in public schools, and was selected by the United States Census Bureau as moderator of its first program beginning its 2010 effort. He has received honorary doctorates from Lafayette College, Wittenberg University, and Long Island University, among other institutions.[23][24][25]

Personal life

Williams married Susan Delise in July 1978 and they have a daughter, Rae, and two sons, Antonio (Tony) and Raphael.[26] Their son, Tony, who was a Senate page and intern for GOP Senator Strom Thurmond from 1996 to 1997, was a speechwriter and legislative correspondent for GOP Senator Norm Coleman from 2004 to 2006, and in 2006 ran for Council of the District of Columbia, losing to Tommy Wells. Their younger son, Raffi, is currently studying anthropology and playing lacrosse at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.[27]

Williams has previously been active on the Haverford College Board of Managers, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, the Washington Journalism Center and the New York Civil Rights Coalition.[3]

Awards

Williams has received many awards, including honorary doctorates from Haverford College and State University of New York.[28]

  • Front Page Award, Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild (1979)
  • Education Writers of America (1979)
  • Columnist of the Year, Washingtonian (1982)
  • Emmy Award (1989)
  • Outstanding Memorial Book, Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States
  • Best National Book, Time
  • Political commentary award, American Association of University Women

Selected bibliography

  • Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. Penguin (Non-Classics). 1988. ISBN 0140096531. 
  • Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary. Three Rivers Press. 2000. ISBN 0812932994. 
  • This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience. Harper Paperbacks. 2003. ISBN 0060934247. 
  • I'll Find a Way or Make One : A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. HarperCollins. 2004. ISBN 0060094532. 
  • My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience. Sterling. 2005. ISBN 1402722338. 
  • Black Farmers in America. The University Press of Kentucky. 2006. ISBN 0813123992. 
  • Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It. Three Rivers Press. 2007. ISBN 030733824X. 
  • Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate. Crown Publishing Group. 2011. ISBN 0307952010. 

References

  1. ^ Eyes on the Prize - Penguin Group USA - Copyright © 2010.
  2. ^ Enough - Random House, Inc. - retrieved October 26, 2010.
  3. ^ a b c "NPR Names Juan Williams as New Host for Talk of the Nation". National Public Radio. 2000-01-27. Archived from the original on 2010-10-25. http://www.webcitation.org/5tkz6LJnT. 
  4. ^ John Elson; Sophfronia Scott Gregory; Elaine Shannon (October 28, 1991). "Press: When Reporters Make News". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974147-1,00.html. Retrieved October 28, 2010. 
  5. ^ Weaver, Carolyn (September 1992). "A Secret No More". American Journalism Review. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1688. 
  6. ^ Kurtz, Howard (November 2, 1991). "Post reporter Williams apologizes for 'innappropriate' verbal conduct". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/10/21/ST2010102102028.html. 
  7. ^ Michael, Gretchen (2001-08-07). "Juan Williams To Become Senior Correspondent". National Public Radio. Archived from the original on 2010-10-25. http://www.webcitation.org/5tlBeI5mz. 
  8. ^ a b "'Juan Williams, NPR, and Fox News'". NPR Ombudsman (blog). NPR. February 11, 2009. http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2009/02/juan_williams_npr_and_fox_news_1.html. Retrieved 2010-08-04. 
  9. ^ Stelter, Brian (October 21, 2010). "NPR Fires Analyst Over Comments on Muslims". The New York Times. p. B2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/business/media/21npr.html. 
  10. ^ "NPR Ends Williams' Contract After Muslim Remarks". NPR. October 21, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737. Retrieved 2010-10-21. 
  11. ^ "NPR's Firing of Juan Williams Was Poorly Handled". NPR. October 22, 2010. http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2010/10/21/130713285/npr-terminates-contract-with-juan-williams. Retrieved 2010-10-22. 
  12. ^ Mark Memmot (10/21/10)[1] NPR. Retrieved 10/21/10.
  13. ^ Mark Memmott (21 October 2010). "NPR CEO: Williams' Views Should Stay Between Himself And 'His Psychiatrist'". NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/10/21/130728202/npr-ceo-williams-views-of-muslims-should-stay-between-himself-and-his-psychiatrist. Retrieved 24 January 2011. 
  14. ^ a b Kurtz, Howard (21 October 2010). "Was Juan Williams Fired Unfairly". The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-21/juan-williams-behind-his-firing-by-npr/. Retrieved 23 October 2010. 
  15. ^ a b William Saletan, The left is doing to Juan Williams what the right did to Shirley Sherrod, Slate.com, 21 Oct 2010. Retrieved 27 Oct 2010.
  16. ^ "Hume: Race had role in NPR firing Williams". Politico. 2010-10-24. http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/1010/Hume_race_had_role_in_NPR_firing_Williams.html. Retrieved 2010-10-28. 
  17. ^ "Juan Williams Talks Back on "O'Reilly Factor"". CBS News. 2010-10-22. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/22/national/main6983495.shtml. Retrieved 2010-10-28. 
  18. ^ a b c "'Juan Williams biography at FoxNews.com'". Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/bios/talent/juan-williams. Retrieved 4 August 2010. 
  19. ^ Gold, Matea (21 October 2010). "In wake of NPR controversy, Fox News gives Juan Williams an expanded role". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/21/news/la-pn-juan-williams-20101022. Retrieved 2010-10-28. 
  20. ^ a b "Fox News Gives Juan Williams $2 Million Contract." Article at www.npr.org, Folkenflik, David, 22 October 2010
  21. ^ "PBS VIDEOdatabase Resource: Eyes on The Prize: Bibliography". http://videoindex.pbs.org/resources/eyes/primary/biblio.html. 
  22. ^ "Official "This Far by Faith" page at PBS.org". http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/about/the_series.html. Retrieved 4 August 2010. 
  23. ^ "Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons to Speak on May 11 at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus Commencement". Long Island University. http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/wn/2006/44.html. Retrieved 8 December 2009. 
  24. ^ "Juan Williams Speaks at 173rd Commencement" (in Lafayette College). http://www.lafayette.edu/news.php/view/12236. Retrieved 8 December 2009. [dead link]
  25. ^ "Wittenberg Senior Class Selects Juan Williams As 2007 Commencement Speaker". Wittenberg University. March 13, 2007. http://www4.wittenberg.edu/news/2007/03_13.html. Retrieved 8 December 2009. 
  26. ^ My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience - By Juan Williams, David Halberstam - March 2004 - acknowledgments, page xv - "special thanks to my daughter Rae ...my son Antonio .. and my youngest son Raphael"
  27. ^ Rothstein, Betsy (April 6, 2006). "Tony Williams: young, Republican and no relation to the mayor". The Hill. http://thehill.com/capital-living/23804-tony-williams-young-republican-and-no-relation-to-the-mayor. Retrieved 2010-10-21. 
  28. ^ "Juan Williams." Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 80. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Biography In Context.

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