Juan Williams, National Public Radio's Senior Correspondent, is an African American Emmy Award–winning writer, and radio and television correspondent, who has written for The Washington Post and has appeared on National Public Radio, Fox News, and PBS.
He was born in April 1954 in Colón, Panama, which is near the Panama Canal Zone (United States territory at the time). His father was a boxing trainer. Williams was raised in the Episcopal branch of the Anglican church, of which his father was a member. In 1958, his family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City.
[edit] Education and career
After graduating from Haverford College with a degree in philosophy, Williams joined The Washington Post, for which he worked from 1976 to 1999. During his tenure at the Post, he played several roles, including editorial writer, op-ed columnist, and White House correspondent.
In 1996, Williams became host of the syndicated television program America's Black Forum, on which he is on a panel that has included Julian Bond, Niger Innis, Debra Mathis, and Armstrong Williams.
He has been a Fox News Channel political contributor since 1997. He is a regular panelist on Special Report with Brit Hume and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. On Fox News Sunday, he is known for his frequent debates with Brit Hume and Bill Kristol. Williams has also written articles for national magazines, including Ebony, Fortune, and GQ.
In 2000, Williams joined National Public Radio, becoming the host of its daily two-hour interview and call-in show, Talk of the Nation. He has also been a frequent guest on PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Williams serves as a senior national correspondent for NPR, providing analysis of major events in interviews with the anchors for the newsmagazines Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He also hosts the "Political Corner" segment each Thursday on NPR's News and Notes. The segment discusses the latest important political issues with two guest analysts—recently professor and author Michael K. Fauntroy and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile—joining the discussion.
[edit] Books and television documentaries
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, and A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom. He is the author of the non-fiction bestseller Eyes on The Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 and Thurgood Marshall—American Revolutionary.
Williams's latest book is 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), 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 reëmphasize 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 the out-of-wedlock birth rate, in which black Americans and families have fallen behind. He expressed these views in an interview about his book that aired on NPR's Morning Edition on Monday, August 7, 2006. He favors family planning, birth control, and the morning-after pill. |
