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| death_date = {{Death date and age|1984|04|27|1917|09|06}}
| death_place = New York City, New York
| resting_place = [[Burr Oak Cemetery]], [[Alsip, Illinois]]
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'''Richard
==Early life==
==Career==
Beginning in 1939, Durham worked
Leaving the IWP in 1942, Durham worked as a freelance writer. Two national shows, ''[[Lone Ranger|The Lone Ranger]]'' and ''[[Ma Perkins]]'', used his scripts.<ref name=Flow /> Durham wrote for ''[[New Masses]]'', the ''[[The Chicago Defender|Chicago Defender]]'', the ''[[Chicago Star]]'' and the ''[[Illinois Standard]]'' newspapers.<ref>Library of Congress: Chronicling America – [https://www.loc.gov/item/sn87062321/ The Chicago Star (Chicago, Ill.) 1946–1948] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205001819/https://www.loc.gov/item/sn87062321/ |date=2022-12-05 }}</ref><ref>Library of Congress: Chronicling America – [https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82015060/ The Illinois Standard (Chicago, Ill.) 1948–1949] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205003811/https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82015060/ |date=2022-12-05 }}</ref> At the same time he joined the [[Communist Party, USA]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pecinovsky |first1=Tony |title='Word Warrior' a good book on democratic media |journal=[[People's World]] |url=https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/word-warrior-a-good-book-on-democratic-media/ |date=December 9, 2015 |quote=Reviewing the book ''Word Warrior'' by Sonja D. Williams |access-date=November 12, 2023 |archive-date=November 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231112164658/https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/word-warrior-a-good-book-on-democratic-media/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
His first radio series was ''Democracy{{snd}}USA'', sponsored by the ''Chicago Defender''.<ref name=Flow /> It aired in 1946 on Chicago's [[WBBM (AM)|WBBM]].<ref name="Ellett">{{cite web |last1=Ellett |first1=Ryan |title='Destination Freedom': 'A Garage in Gainesville' and 'Execution Awaited' (September 25; October 2, 1949) |url=https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/DestinationFreedom.pdf |publisher=Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board |access-date=December 30, 2022 |archive-date=December 21, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221221225407/https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/DestinationFreedom.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The next year he started the dramatic Black [[soap opera]] radio series
===''Destination Freedom''===
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===Post-''Destination Freedom''===
After ''Destination Freedom'' Durham was the national program director of the [[United Packinghouse Workers of America]]. He resigned in 1958.<ref>[[Chicago Public Library]] – [https://mts.lib.uchicago.edu/collections/findingaids/index.php?eadid=MTS.durham Mapping The Stacks – Guide to the Richard Durham Papers, 1939–1999] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117190122/https://mts.lib.uchicago.edu/collections/findingaids/index.php?eadid=MTS.durham |date=2022-11-17 }}</ref> He then was a [[press agent]] for [[T.
====''Muhammed Speaks'' editing====
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===''Bird of the Iron Feather'' soap opera===
While an editor of ''Muhammed Speaks'' Durham created a [[soap opera]] for Chicago's [[WTTW]] television station. ''[[Bird of the Iron Feather]]'' was the first all-Black television soap opera, and ran for 21 episodes, three times a week starting in January 1970. The show's title came from a speech by [[Frederick Douglass]] given in 1847.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qb0-CgAAQBAJ&dq=Bird+of+the+Iron+Feather+Jonah+Rhodes&pg=PA135 |title=Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom |chapter=Chapter 10: Struggling to Fly |isbn=978-0252097980 |last=Williams |first=Sonja D. |date=August 30, 2015 |pages=130–145 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=June 25, 2023 |archive-date=June 27, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627141302/https://books.google.com/books?id=qb0-CgAAQBAJ&dq=Bird+of+the+Iron+Feather+Jonah+Rhodes&pg=PA135 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Sergio Mims, February 24, 2017, [https://shadowandact.com/amp/bird-of-an-iron-feather-televisions-first-black-soap-opera-that-was-too-hot-for-television "''Bird of an Iron Feather'' – Television's First Black Soap Opera That Was Too Hot for Television] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205003820/https://shadowandact.com/amp/bird-of-an-iron-feather-televisions-first-black-soap-opera-that-was-too-hot-for-television |date=2022-12-05 }}, ''Shadow & Act''.</ref><ref>[https://current.org/2016/06/remembering-a-public-tv-drama-that-delved-into-lives-of-black-chicagoans/ "Remembering a public TV drama that delved into lives of black Chicagoans"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225201724/https://current.org/2016/06/remembering-a-public-tv-drama-that-delved-into-lives-of-black-chicagoans/ |date=2022-12-25 }} Sonja D. Williams, June 14, 2016, Current.org</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/bird-iron-feather|title=Bird of the Iron Feather|date=October 23, 2017|website=Television Academy Interviews|access-date=December 5, 2022|archive-date=March 24, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324002129/https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/bird-iron-feather|url-status=live}}</ref>
===Other media===
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===Personal life===
From at least the late 1940s until his death, Durham was married to fellow Northwestern alumnus and prominent Chicago educator Clarice Davis (1919–2018), with whom he had one child, a son, Mark.<ref>{{cite web |title=Clarice Durham |url=https://www.wwdmf.org/clarice-durham |publisher=Woods, Wyatt, and Durham Foundation |access-date=20 December 2022 |archive-date=20 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221220183820/https://www.wwdmf.org/clarice-durham |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Clarice Durham (Obituary) |url=https://legacy.suntimes.com/us/obituaries/chicagosuntimes/name/clarice-durham-obituary?id=18380871 |publisher=Chicago Sun-Times |access-date=20 December 2022 |date=6 May 2018 |archive-date=20 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221220183819/https://legacy.suntimes.com/us/obituaries/chicagosuntimes/name/clarice-durham-obituary?id=18380871 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=Photo Standalone 17 [No Title]|author=|date=March 6, 1954|work=The Chicago Defender|page=8|quote=A Lively Square Dance captures the feet and fancy of children of Chicago's Ellis Community Center... . In the photo, Mark Durham and Eleanor Newhoff pause to catch their breath. Mark is the son of Mrs. Clarice Davis Durham, director of the school.|id={{ProQuest|492884645}}}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=High Schools Are Proud of Star Seniors: Classmates Choose Star Seniors; Hyde Park|author=|date=June 19, 1966|work=The Chicago Defender|page=2, Sec. 10|quote=Mark Durham, 17, the star senior from Hyde Park High School, is a football player who writes poetry. [...] He said he caught the 'writing bug' from his father, who is also a free-lance writer. ...|id={{ProQuest|178977830}}}}</ref>
Durham ==See also==
* [[Golden Age of Radio]]
* [[Carlton Moss]] – a
* [[Roi Ottley]] – journalist and writer who wrote the radio series ''New World A'Coming'', broadcast by [[WMCA (AM)|WMCA]] in New York City in 1944
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* {{cite book |last1=Bogle |first1=Donald|author1-link=Donald Bogle |title=Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks|edition=4th |year=2001|orig-year=1973 (Viking) |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-0-8264-1267-6|oclc=53220186}}
* {{cite book |last1=Dolinar |first1=Brian |editor-first1=Brian |editor-last1=Dolinar |title=The Negro in Illinois : the WPA papers |date=2013 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Urbana |isbn=978-0252037696 |oclc=885228982 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8iwrdivn4dMC |doi=10.5406/illinois/9780252037696.001.0001}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ellett |first1=Ryan |title=Encyclopedia of Black Radio in the United States, 1921–1955 |year=2012 |publisher=McFarland & Co., Inc. |location=Jefferson, NC |isbn=978-1476693392|oclc=1369512406}}
* {{cite web |last1=Ellett |first1=Ryan |title=Destination: Radio, A Look at Some of
* {{cite book |editor1-last=Guzman |editor1-first=Richard D. |others=[[Carolyn M. Rodgers]] (forward)|title=Black Writing From Chicago: In the World, Not of It? |date=2006 |publisher=Southern Illinois University Press |location=Carbondale |isbn=978-0809327034 |pages=119–126 |chapter=Richard Durham (1917–1984)|oclc=62324506| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NYHV1P4we4UC&dq=%22Richard+Durham%22&pg=PA119|via=Google Books}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Kavanaugh |first1=Brian |title=''Destination Freedom'' (1948) & Fred Pinkard & Richard Durham |journal=Old Time Radio Times |publisher=Old Time Radio Researchers Group|date=March–April 2022 |issue=119 |pages=13–16 |location=Lawrence, Kansas|url=https://otrr.org/FILES/Times_Archive_pdf/2022_02%20MarchApril.pdf}}
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* {{cite journal |last1=MacDonald |first1=J. Fred |title=Radio's Black Heritage. ''Destination Freedom'', 1948–1950 |journal=[[Phylon]] |date=March 1978|volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=66–73 |doi=10.2307/274433 |jstor=274433 |issn=0031-8906}}
* {{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=J. Fred |title=Don't Touch That Dial. Radio Programing in American Life (1920–1960) |year=1991|orig-year=1979|publisher=Nelson-Hall |location=Chicago |pages=327–370 |chapter=Stride Toward Freedom – Blacks in Radio Programing|isbn=978-0882295282|oclc=29810460}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Rocksborough-Smith |first1=Ian |title='I had gone in there thinking I was going to be a cultural worker: Richard Durham, Oscar Brown, Jr. and the United Packinghouse Workers Association in Chicago |journal=[[Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society]]|publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |location=Springfield, IL|date=Fall 2016 |volume=109 |issue=3 |pages=252–299|oclc=60620289|issn=2328-3335 |
* {{cite book |last1=Savage |first1=Barbara Dianne |title=Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race 1938–1948 |date=1999 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill & London |isbn=978-0807848043 |pages=246–270 |chapter=Chapter 6: ''New World A'Coming'' and ''Destination Freedom''|oclc=40135343}}
* {{cite web |last1=Webb |first1=Jacqueline Gales |title=Black Radio : Telling It Like It Was, circa 1920s–1997, bulk 1991–1995 |url=https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/findingaids/view?brand=general&docId=VAC0316 |website=Archives Online at Indiana University |publisher=Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) |access-date=November 12, 2023 |format=Repository index}}
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[[Category:20th-century American screenwriters]]
[[Category:Activists for African-American civil rights]]
[[Category:African-American journalists]]
[[Category:African-American male writers]]
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[[Category:American male television writers]]
[[Category:American documentary radio programs]]
[[Category:Federal Writers' Project people]]
[[Category:Historians of African Americans]] [[Category:Historians of the civil rights movement]]
[[Category:Hyde Park Academy High School alumni]]
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