William Raspberry wasn’t one to take shortcuts. Whether he was reaching out to readers in one of his columns or talking to a room full of college graduates, he always encouraged others to seek out the whole story.
“I would never ask that you abandon your principles or your commitment to stand up for what you believe,” the Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist told the University of Virginia’s class of 1995.
“But I do ask you to abandon the arrogance that says you are the only one with principles, the only one with beliefs worth standing up for.”
Raspberry, a long-standing member of the journalism school’s Board of Visitors, passed away July 17 at his home in Washington at age 76 from prostate cancer.
As a member of the board since 1983, Raspberry would meet with 19 other prominent media and journalism professionals twice a year to advise and assist the journalism school’s dean and faculty and help in selecting and recruiting students for the school.
“He was always there as a lovely, genial, calm and extremely knowledgeable person,” said close friend and former journalism Dean Kevin Klose.
Raspberry worked at The Washington Post for nearly 40 years, starting in the early 1960s as a teletype operator before advancing to his position as a columnist, from which he tackled issues from civil rights to gun control. In 1994, he won a Pulitzer for Distinguished Commentary for his work.
“He really worked himself from the bottom of the loop to the very top of his profession,” said George Solomon, a journalism professor who was the Post’s assistant sports managing editor from 1975-2003.
Since he became a columnist in 1966, Raspberry was seen as a trailblazer and role model, friends said, especially to black journalists struggling to make their voices heard in newly desegregated newsrooms.
Raspberry was known for challenging his readers to be open-minded, consider all sides to a story and seek out practical steps forward to issues ranging from street violence to parenting.
“He had a real pulse for not only the city but the country and what people were thinking,” Solomon said.
After spending 39 years at the Post, Raspberry retired in December 2005 with the intent to refocus his life and make a difference in a new way.
His last official column addressed his belief that education was the key to a better future. He wanted to inspire his readers and the next generation to ask, “What’s next?”
Upon retirement, he established a nonprofit organization, Baby Steps, in Okolona, Miss., the small town where he was born in 1935. The organization worked to provide aid to low-income families, guiding parents to secure an education for their children.
“The moral of Raspberry’s life is that where you are from is important, but it is only one part of you,” Klose said. “The bigger part of you is what you bring from that place.”
Raspberry’s survivors include his wife, Sondra Dodson Raspberry of Washington; his mother, Willie Mae Tucker Raspberry of Indianapolis; his daughters, Patricia Raspberry of Washington and Angela Raspberry Jackson of Detroit; and his sons, Mark Raspberry of Washington and Reginald Harrison of Manassas, Va.
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