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Acknowledgments I began this book at the suggestion of Beverly Jarrett, director and editor-inchief of the University of Missouri Press. She and her editorial board felt that Walter Williams belonged in the Press's Missouri Biography Series, and that I might enjoy writing about this uniquely interesting man. They were right on both counts. I never met Walter Williams-he died the summer I was bornbut lowe him a great deal, for he invented the academic discipline in which I've made my living for a very long time now. I hope this biography begins to do the man justice. Whether it does or not, a great many people helped along the way with this project and they should be thanked. High on the list is Dr. William Howard Taft, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri. If I had only drawn upon his own prodigious scholarship, his books and articles about Missouri journalism, my debt to him would be enormous. But Bill Taft also shared with me his own papers, which included many letters from former students at the School ofJournalism and others whose recollections of Walter Williams found their way into these pages. He also introduced me to Francis Pike, able biographer ofEd Watson, and a number of other sprightly octogenarians with firsthand knowledge ofthe Walter Williams family. Indeed, to this entire project Bill Taft committed the same wonderful encouragement and insight he had devoted more than a generation ago to the supervision of my doctoral dissertation. Two full-length biographies of Walter Williams were written earlier. The first, never published, was by his widow, Sara Lockwood Williams. The other, by a friend and former student ofWilliams, Frank Rucker, was brought out by the Missourian Publishing Company in 1964. I've drawn heavily and gratefully upon both works, and if some of my interpretations are somewhat harsher than theirs, my respect for Williams, and for his earlier biographers, remains intact. Archivists and reference librarians, as always, were uncommonly helpful. I'm especially beholden to D. J. Wade, Senior Manuscript Specialist at the University of Missouri Archives-she opened up the shop on Saturdays, when necessary, to accommodate a hard-pressed researcher from far awayand to Randy Roberts, Senior Manuscript Specialist at the Western Historical ManuscriptCollection at the University ofMissouri. That marvelous repository houses the extensive papers of both Walter and Sara Lockwood Williams as xi xii Acknowledgments well as those of dozens of political and journalistic leaders with whom they corresponded. The manuscript collection is a very rich source, and Randy Roberts was a splendid guide to it. Charles Overby, who heads the Freedom Forum, provided funding for a number of my research errands to Columbia, Missouri. I'm grateful also for smaller travel grants from the University of South Carolina Foundation and the Southern Regional Education Board. lowe at least two debts to Dean Mills, an old friend who now sits at Walter Williams's desk. First, he kept his distance while this manuscript was being researched and written. While I would have welcomed his thoughtful observations and his sharp editorial eye, it seemed important to both of us that this manuscript be developed quite apart from the present-day operations ofthe School ofJournalism at the University ofMissouri. But, and this is the second debt, Dean Mills did place at my disposal a bright and energetic research assistant, a young graduate student from Russia named Pavel Chernyshev. Pavel attacked those voluminous papers in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection with an intelligent ferocity that makes me glad the Cold War ended when it did. I likewise deeply appreciate the patience of Beverly Jarrett at the Missouri Press-this manuscript should have been completed long before it was-and for her talented editorial team, notably John Brenner, a skilled and sensitive editor. Bill Foley, professor of history at Central Missouri State University and general editor of the Missouri Biography Series, gave the manuscript an especially thorough and authoritative reading. His comments were very helpful. Needless to add, however, any errors that might appear in this text are not the fault of anyone but me. My faculty colleagues in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, as they have in the past, proved a great source of support. My dean, Judy VanSlyke Turk, came through with a sabbatical leave for me at a critical point in the project, and my fellow professors, close friends as well as respected colleagues, picked up the slack...

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