William Worthy (Jr)

Abstract

This article examines the career of William Worthy Jr., an influential but overlooked African-American foreign correspondent whose activities and writings from the 1950s through the 1980s helped transform the role of modern foreign correspondence. The study argues that Worthy's successful challenges of government-ordered travel bans solidified the right of the media to report from anywhere in the world. An examination of approximately 50 articles identified the range of Worthy's foreign reporting which addressed imperialism, communism, race relations, and US practices and policies abroad. His work was important not simply because it changed how foreign news is gathered, but because it represented a missing voice and provided a distinctive perspective on world events and the impact of US government actions on the global community. Research on Worthy's career is significant not merely because it fills a void, but it is emblematic of African American foreign correspondence, an area of journalism with which contemporary scholars may have lost sight or perhaps are unaware.