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[ 12 ] Defiance in the Name of Press Freedom On a cold Christmas Eve in 1956, William Worthy Jr. went to his room on the Harvard University campus, where he was a Nieman fellow, and found a visa and a cablegram had been slid under his door. The cable invited Worthy to travel to China as a reporter. He hastened to Boston’s Logan Airport before the State Department could get on his trail and flew to Tokyo. From there he traveled by train and slipped into China along its border at Lo Wu. He defied a government travel ban to the communist country. For forty-one days, Worthy filed stories to The Afro-American newspaper chain and CBS News from mainland China. That was not an easy task, given the climate in America and the dramatic changes in the world after World War II. The Cold War was well underway. Communism was taking hold in Europe and Asia. African nations trying to throw off the yoke of colonialism were also looking to the East. McCarthyism had tainted many Americans as communists or communist sympathizers. In 1951, the State Department invoked the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 to proscribe foreign travel to communist nations and to deny passports to persons suspected of affiliating with communists or seeking to attend international congresses, or whose presence abroad was deemed not in the “national interest.”1 Worthy defied the national-interest argument. He believed world power politics and fear of communism were the reasons for the government’s suppression of the press. That conviction guided a career that reads like a spy novel—trips to remote prisons in politically and militarily threatening countries , violence, war, covert exits in the dark of night, false identities, challenges to the government, hardship, and redemption. Even the mainstream media took note of this intrepid correspondent, who dared to enter forbidden countries to cover events on the world stage. In a 1970 interview, he explained that he had done it because “I was trying to stretch to the utmost, my long term faith that sufficient information . . . communicated to a sufficient number of defiance in the name of press freedom 157 people in this country, will eventually result in some change in direction and policy actions.”2 Worthy never married. Raymond Boone, a lifelong friend who was like a son to him, said that the globetrotting correspondent wanted to give “a balance by not just hearing the official American point of view, but hearing the other side . . . to also have as many ideas on the table as possible with the view that the best idea would persist.”3 Worthy was further driven by the belief that no nation had the right to suppress people or the press; that a free press was obligated to cover all sides of the story; and that the press and ordinary citizens had the right to criticize the government.4 Boone was familiar with Worthy’s views because he was the editor of The Afro-American when Worthy embarked on many challenging assignments around the globe. Michael Meyers , another longtime friend, said the “driving force” in Worthy’s life and work was his belief that “in order to be free, we have to know.”5 When the thirty-five-year-old Worthy received the visa and cablegram, he did not hesitate to leave Harvard, where he was studying topics related to journalism as a prestigious Nieman Fellow. His reporting transformed the role of modern foreign correspondence. Unlike other reporters, who abided by the government’s restrictions, Worthy acted on his own. Although other black foreign correspondents sometimes did the same—especially in the early years of the genre—black editors primarily worked through government channels to get news from abroad during conflicts. The black press lobbied the government to send a black journalist to report on black soldiers during World War I. African American editors also went through government channels for accreditation for their correspondents during World War II and the Korean conflict. Worthy asked no such permission. Even the mainstream media, although they reported Worthy’s defiant actions, acquiesced to the government’s travel restrictions.6 Some of his friends called Worthy a radical—but “not the bomb-throwing kind.”7 Born in Boston on July 7, 1921, into a politically involved family, William was the youngest of four children and the only boy. His father, William Worthy Sr., was a doctor and...

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