Word Warrior
“Narrator Robin Miles educates listeners about the life and work of African-American radio broadcaster Richard Durham. She delivers the author’s take on Durham’s rise as an intellectual during a period of increased attention to African-American writing and music following WWII. Miles works capably across a wide range of material, including interview excerpts and historical description. Her smooth transitions create a seamless listening experience. She even takes on singing the lyrics of some spirituals of the antebellum South. For those who are history buffs or wish to learn more about African-American studies, this is a title that you can listen to all at once and have at the ready for replay.”
AudioFile
Posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007, Richard Durham creatively chronicled and brought to life the significant events of his times. Durham’s trademark narrative style engaged listeners with fascinating characters, compelling details, and sharp images of pivotal moments in American and African American history and culture.
In Word Warrior, award-winning radio producer Sonja D. Williams draws on archives and hard-to-access family records, as well as interviews with family and colleagues like Studs Terkel and Toni Morrison, to illuminate Durham’s astounding career.
Durham paved the way for black journalists as a dramatist and a star investigative reporter and editor for the pioneering black newspapers the Chicago Defender and Muhammed Speaks. Talented and versatile, he also created the acclaimed radio series Destination Freedom and Here Comes Tomorrow and wrote for popular radio fare like The Lone Ranger. Incredibly, his energies extended still further—to community and labor organizing, advising Chicago mayoral hopeful Harold Washington, and mentoring generations of activists.
Incisive and in-depth, Word Warrior tells the story of a tireless champion of African American freedom, equality, and justice during an epoch that forever changed a nation.
Praise