Login | October 05, 2024
Award-winning author Wil Haygood to speak at Butler Institute
SHERRY KARABIN
Legal News Reporter
Published: October 3, 2024
As a teenager living in the Bolivar Arms public housing project in Columbus in 1968, Wil Haygood watched the racial rebellion play out in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April.
“We had the National Guard and police surrounding the housing project,” said Haygood. “There was a curfew in place for us young Black kids. To go to the store in the evening you had to have a piece of paper stating what you were doing.
“We were constantly harassed by law enforcement,” said Haygood. “It was a horrific way for a little Black kid to grow up, but that was the reality in America at the time.”
Years later, Haygood would go on to earn his bachelor’s degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and become an award-winning journalist and author, who chronicled the Civil Rights Movement and spotlighted key figures who helped open doors in the struggle for racial justice and equality in the United States.
Some of his most notable works as an author include New York Times Bestsellers “The Butler: A Witness to History” and “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America.”
On Oct. 9, Haygood will discuss his journey to success, major milestones in his career and his future plans at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown as part of the Mahoning County Bar Association Foundation’s speaker series.
Sponsored by the Mahoning County Bar Association Foundation, Haygood is the third high-profile person to be featured since the event kicked off in April 2022 with Dallas-based attorney Brian Cuban, the younger brother of Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban.
Last year, abduction survivor Elizabeth Smart shared her story with audience members at the DeYor Performing Arts Center in Youngstown.
“We’re very excited to hear Mr. Haygood speak,” said Elsa Reale-Gottfried, president of the Mahoning County Bar Association Foundation. “Mr. Haygood tells our shared American story and how we as a nation evolved as a result of the struggles during the Civil Rights Movement.”
A native of Columbus, Haygood and his mother lived in his grandparents’ home in an integrated neighborhood in Columbus until he was 13.
“Both my mother and grandmother were born in Selma, Alabama and this definitely influenced my life as a young boy,” said Haygood. “My grandmother had a sister living in Detroit during the explosion of the racial rebellions and I would hear her on the phone with her sister. She was very concerned for her safety.”
When he started at Miami University in 1972, he majored in urban studies, which is part of the department of geography.
After graduating in 1976, Haygood moved to New York City and went through the executive training program at Macy’s.
“I worked as a floor manager for a couple of years,” said Haygood. “I was not very good at it and eventually they let me go.
“After my last day of work at Macy’s, I read a story at the New York Public Library about the publisher of the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, who had hired the first African American journalist.
“I was very inspired by it so I wrote him a letter telling him that I wanted to be a journalist there and if he was interested in hiring me he should send a letter to my grandparents’ house in Columbus since I was moving back home.”
As fate would have it, he was hired as a copy editor. Determined to be a reporter, Haygood spent his days off tracking down and writing stories that were published in the paper.
Two years later, Haygood got a full-time reporting position at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, later joining the Boston Globe, where he became a prominent national and foreign correspondent and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
“I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison in South Africa,” said Haygood. “I covered the civil wars in Liberia and Somalia.
“My photographer and I were taken hostage by the rebels in Somalia for two difficult days. We were exchanged for ransom.”
In 2001, he joined the Washington Post. Then in 2008, while covering the maiden campaign of former President Barack Obama for the White House, Haygood tracked down Eugene Allen, an African American butler who had worked for eight presidential administrations (Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan).
During his time at the White House, Allen witnessed some of the most notable political and social events of the 20th century.
Haygood’s article, “A Butler Well Served by This Election” won multiple awards and was later purchased by a Hollywood producer, who used it as the basis for the 2013 award-winning movie “The Butler,” starring Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, John Cusack and Jane Fonda, among others.
Haygood’s New York Times bestseller, “The Butler: A Witness to History,” was published less than a month before the movie was released.
Some of his other award-winning books include biographies on U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and professional boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.
In August 2018, he published “Tigerland: 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing.”
The book details the inspiring story of the all-Black basketball and baseball teams at segregated East High School in Columbus that made history by each winning a state championship title in the same academic year.
“I thought it was important to tell this inspiring story,” said Haygood.
His most recent book is entitled “Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World.”
“After the ‘#OscarsSoWhite’ controversy of 2015 and 2016, where no Blacks were nominated for Oscars in the acting category, I thought it was important to delve into the history of Blacks in cinema and their long struggles,” Haygood said.
Haygood worked for the Washington Post for 14 years. He left to teach journalism and non-fiction writing at his alma mater Miami University, where he currently serves as Boadway Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of Media, Journalism and Film.
“It was such an honor to be asked to teach at my alma mater,” said Haygood, who continues to live in Washington, D.C. when he is not on campus.
“The Freedom Workers who went to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 underwent training at Western College for Women in Oxford,” he said. “One of my professors, Rick Momeyer, (now Miami professor emeritus of philosophy) was involved in the training sessions.
“Three of those Freedom fighters (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner) lost their lives fighting for voting rights in Mississippi.”
Haygood said he’s very proud that the university now celebrates this history with its Freedom Summer of ‘64 Award, first given to the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis in 2018.
Haygood won the same award in 2023.
The previous year, he was named as the winner of the prestigious Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, which honors writers whose work promotes peace, social justice and global understanding.
Former President Jimmy Carter received the award this year.
“When I was younger I had a dream of being a great basketball player, but clearly that was not in the cards for me,” said Haygood. “My love of history and newspapers took me in a different direction.
“What I hope to communicate to the audience in Youngstown is that when we pull together as a country we can accomplish great things. Our Democracy is a precious thing and it only stays together if we adhere to the laws in our country.
“I am a product of our Democracy,” said Haygood. “I am a first generation college graduate who received the support of so many different people from all walks of life.”
Haygood said his main goal now is to keep unraveling the mysteries of America in his writing and reporting.
“It helps a writer to be optimistic and hopeful about the world,” said Haygood. “I really believe that.”
The Oct. 9 event featuring Haygood gets underway at 7 p.m. at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.
While it is free and open to the public, registration is required. To do so, go to mahoningbar.org/events.