William Ernest Peters Jr. (July 30, 1921 – May 20, 2007) was an American journalist and documentary filmmaker who frequently covered race relations in the United States. His 1956 Redbook magazine article "Our Weapon Is Love" introduced the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the philosophy of nonviolent resistance to the nation.

Biography

Born in San Francisco, he earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in English from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in 1947. He served as an

Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

pilot during World War II. Peters won

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

s for his 1963

CBS Reports ''CBS Reports'' is the umbrella title used for documentaries by CBS News which aired starting in 1959 through the 1990s. The series sometimes aired as a wheel series rotating with '' 60 Minutes'' (or other similar CBS News series), as a series of i ...

documentary ''Storm Over the Supreme Court'', his 1967 documentary ''Africa'', 1970's '' Eye of the Storm'', and 1976 ''Suddenly an Eagle''. His 1985 documentary '' A Class Divided'', a sequel to ''Eye of the Storm'', aired on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...

'' and won an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

. He also wrote several books, including ''The Southern Temper'' in 1959 and "For Us the Living", a book about

Medgar Evers Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served i ...

co-authored with Myrlie Evers (widow of Medgar Evers) in 1967. In 1964, Peters began work on '' CBS Reports: The Homosexuals'' with the approval of CBS News head

Fred W. Friendly Fred W. Friendly (born Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer, October 30, 1915 – March 3, 1998) was a president of CBS News and the creator, along with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program '' See It Now''. He originated the concep ...

, although the program was not completed and aired until 1967. Peters lived in

Louisville, Colorado The City of Louisville () is a home rule municipality located in southeastern Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 21,226 at the 2020 United States Census. Louisville began as a mining community in 1877, experienced a ...

, late in life and died there of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

.Fox, margalit (May 14, 2007). William Peters, 85, Journalist Who Examined Race in U.S.. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' His daughter

Gretchen Peters Gretchen Peters (born November 14, 1957) is an American singer and songwriter. She was born in New York, where she wrote her first song with her sister at the age of 5. In 1970, her parents broke up, and Peters moved with her mother to Boulder, ...

is an American singer and songwriter.

References

External links

* *William Peters, 85; writer examined U.S. race relation

Jocelyn Y. Stewart, May 27, 2007 *Letter from Martin Luther King, Jr. to William Peter

25 April 1956 *William Peters, 85, Journalist Who Examined Race in U.S

Margalit Fox, May 24, 2007 *A Class Divide

Frontline PBS *CBS Reports 1959-196

*Filibuster – Birth Struggle of a Law (script

Broadcast March 18, 1964. 1921 births 2007 deaths American male journalists Neurological disease deaths in Colorado Deaths from Alzheimer's disease People from Louisville, Colorado 20th-century American journalists United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II Military personnel from Colorado {{US-journalist-1920s-stub