Life
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist William Raspberry loses battle to cancer
“Bill Raspberry inspired a rising generation of African-American columnists and commentators who followed in his path, including me,” said Clarence Page, a Pulitzer-winning columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
Although he considered himself a liberal, Raspberry’s moderate, nuanced positions on issues including civil rights and gun control garnered criticism from both the right and the left. He was especially concerned with the problems of ordinary people. He told Editor & Publisher magazine in 1994 that reporters could “care about the people they report on and still retain the capacity to tell the story straight.”
He taught journalism for more than 10 years at Duke University. A collection of his columns, Looking Back at Us, was published in 1991.
The son of two teachers, Raspberry was born in 1935 in the northeastern Mississippi town of Okolona. He attended Indiana Central College, now the University of Indianapolis, and joined The Post after a stint as a public information officer with the Army.
Survivors include his 106-year-old mother, his wife of 45 years, three children, a foster son, a sister and a brother.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
