PBS documentary “Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect” to feature Miami alum Wil Haygood

Wil Haygood, a seasoned journalist, accomplished writer and Boadway Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence for the Department of Media, Journalism and Film at Miami University, will add commentary to “Becoming Thurgood: America’s Social Architect,” a new documentary that focuses on the life and career of “Mr. Civil Rights.”

“When I was a kid, there was a civil rights revolution,” Haygood said. “I started to dream. There was nobody in my family who had gone to college.”

In 1972, Haygood attended Miami University and soon after became a reporter. A pivotal moment in Haygood’s life came as he started work at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1983.

“There was the upcoming 20th anniversary of the epic March on Washington.” Haygood said. “I was new to the staff and no editor was going to ask me to do that assignment.”

Haygood caught a bus to the nation’s capital and told his editors that he was going to write stories about the reunion for tomorrow’s edition.

“I needed to go to Washington to experience and see all of those people, 20 years earlier, who had been at the March on Washington when I was just a kid.”

It was here where Haygood further realised the giant that was Thurgood Marshall. 

“Hovering over all of that, sitting in the Supreme Court,” he said, “[was] Thurgood Marshall.”

In 2015, Haygood wrote “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America,” which focused on Marshall’s rise to the Supreme Court, while explaining numerous legal cases that helped shape Marshall’s career.

The book won the Scribes Book Award, which is given to the best legal book each year.

Haygood noted Marshall’s role in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education United States Supreme Court case was pivotal to the landscape of America.

“It said to the nation that ‘separate but equal’ is immoral,” he said. “You fast forward all of these years later and some of the same forces are at work today to stop the racial healing that has been going on in this country.”

Haygood spoke to the Oxford Free Press about the upcoming documentary’s relevance in today’s world.

“I think that this documentary reminds America of the fight for freedom in this country,” he said. “I think the film also shows what a giant Thurgood Marshall was.”

Haygood believes that the country needs to remember Marshall’s legacy when planning for the nation’s future. 

“We will have to find ways to deal with systemic racism and to deal with the risk of hate crimes,” he said.

From Marshall’s legal career with the NAACP to his appointment to the United States Supreme Court, the documentary will highlight the legacy of “Mr. Civil Rights.”

The documentary is directed and produced by Alexis Aggrey, and executive producer Stanley Nelson, an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker.

It will premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 10 p.m. and can be streamed on the PBS app and website.

Haygood also has a new book coming out titled “The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home,” which focuses on telling the stories of Black soldiers and their hardships throughout the first racially integrated war in United States history.