Juan Williams
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| Juan Williams | |
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 Juan Williams speaking at Chautauqua Institution in 2007 |
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| Born | April 10, 1954 Colón, Panama |
| Occupation | Author, journalist |
| Notable credit(s) | CNN Crossfire Fox News Sunday National Public Radio |
Juan Williams (born April 10, 1954) is a an American journalist, author, and political commentator.
Williams regularly appears on major radio and television programs, notably National Public Radio and the Fox News Channel. He also writes for leading newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and has been published in magazines including The Atlantic Monthly and Time.
Williams has spoken at such major events as the Smithsonian’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown 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.[1][2][3]
Williams was an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, White House correspondent and national correspondent during his 23 year career at The Washington Post. He has won several awards for investigative journalism and his opinion columns.
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[edit] Early years
Williams was born in Colon, Panama, near the Canal Zone, then a United States territory. His father, Roger, was a boxing trainer and his mother, Alma, a seamstress. He was raised in the Episcopal Church. When he was four years old his family —including older siblings Elena and Rogelio — moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. He then won a scholarship to attend Oakwood School in Poughkeepsie, New York. He became president of the student body, editor of the student paper and was captain of the baseball, cross-country and championship basketball team. He then won a scholarship to Haverford College where he graduated with a B.A. in philosophy in 1976.
[edit] Career
During college, Williams worked for three years as a reporter intern for the Philadelphia Bulletin. He also won a Dow-Jones Newspaper Fund Award for outstanding young journalists and worked for a summer as an editor at the Providence Journal before returning to finish college. After graduation, he won an internship at The Washington Post. He worked at the paper from 1976 to 2000. During his tenure at the Post, he held several positions, including metropolitan staff writer. While on the local staff he wrote a prize winning 6 part series on the problems in the DC public schools that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His investigative reporting on corruption in Mayor Marion Barry’s administration also won several awards. He later served on the Post’s national staff – covering every major political campaign from 1980 to 2000 – and as a political analyst. He also wrote as the paper’s White House correspondent, as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist and for the Post Sunday Magazine.
While at the Post he became a regular panelist on Inside Washington, a leading weekly Washington political affairs program. In 1990 CNN signed him to be a host for its highly rated Crossfire program with co-hosts Bob Novak, Michael Kinsley and Pat Buchanan. He also regularly appeared on Capitol Gang and hosted Crossfire Sunday with Lynne Cheney.
In 1996, Williams became host of the syndicated television program, America’s Black Forum. The show’s regular panelists included Julian Bond, Niger Innis, Deborah Mathis and Armstrong Williams.
Williams joined the Fox News Channel as a political contributor in 1997. He is a regular panelist 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 on the top rated cable news show.[4]
Williams joined NPR in 1999 as host of the daily afternoon talk show Talk of the Nation. During his nearly two years as host the show gained its highest ratings. He then served as senior national correspondent for NPR, interviewing newsmakers as well as providing analysis of major events in interviews with the anchors for the newsmagazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Saturday and Sunday.
[edit] Television
Williams has received an Emmy Award for television documentary writing, and has won widespread critical acclaim for a series of documentaries, including Politics – The New Black Power, A. Phillip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom, Marion Anderson, Dateline Freedom- Civil Rights and The Press, Riot to Recovery and Dying for Healthcare.
He was the scriptwriter for Oprah Winfrey’s Prime Time special – No One Dies Alone.
Williams is credited along with the production staff at Blackside, Inc. for the book, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, written after the fact as a companion volume to the landmark PBS series by the same title. (The television programs were written by and credited to Blackside's team of producers and series writer Steve Fayer.) Similarly, the book, This Far by Faith was created by Williams and Quinton Dixie to accompany a PBS series of the same name that was already in production at Blackside.
He has also won an Emmy Award for TV documentary writing and won widespread critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including Politics-The New Black Power. His documentary on A. Phillip Randolph was featured on PBS. Articles by Williams have appeared in magazines ranging from Newsweek, Fortune and The Atlantic Monthly to Ebony, GQ and The New Republic.
[edit] Books
Williams’ book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America – and What We Can Do About It (August 2006) presents a critical look at the current generation of black leaders. In it, he echoes themes expressed by Bill Cosby, calling on black Americans to take responsibility for their actions; return to a work ethic that, he contends, has been lost in recent years; and begin to reemphasize stigmatization, at least in certain forms, as a way to promote policies that he sees as conducive to black development, such as renewed focus on education, monogamy and marriage and self-sufficiency. While Williams acknowledges that the African-American community has made great strides since the civil rights era, he also argues that there have been significant areas, such as out-of-wedlock birth rate, in which black Americans and families have fallen behind.
He is the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling biography of the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court Justice – Thurgood Marshall – American Revolutionary. It was selected by the New York Times as a “Notable Book of the Year,” and has been reprinted several times, including on the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Other books include the 2006 New York Times Best Seller, Enough – The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America-What We Can Do About It and I’ll Find A Way or Make One – Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is also the author of My Soul Looks Back in Wonder – Voices of The Civil Rights Experience. Williams also wrote the introductory essay for the celebrated book Black Farmers in America featuring photographs by John Ficara.
Williams is also credited as author on two books written to support documentary series already in production at Blackside, Inc. in Boston. (The books are based on the television series, not vice versa.) Late in the production of Blackside, Inc.'s landmark PBS documentary series, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, Williams worked with the Blackside publishing team and staff producers to create the series' companion volume, also called Eyes on the Prize. Along the same lines, he and Quinton Dixie wrote the companion book for This Far by Faith – Stories from the African American Religious Experience.
[edit] References
- ^ "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 08 December 2009.
- ^ "Juan Williams Speaks at 173rd Commencement" (in Lafayette College). http://www.lafayette.edu/news.php/view/12236. Retrieved 08 December 2009.
- ^ "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 08 December 2009.
- ^ http://www.foxnews.com/bios/talent/juan-williams Williams' Fox News biography
[edit] External links
- Juan Williams: NPR Biography
- Juan Williams: Fox News Biography
- A Conversation with Juan Williams — Video
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