Lewis Diuguid

Kansas City journalist and author
Lewis Diuguid
[edit on Wikidata]

Lewis Walter Diuguid is an American journalist and author in Kansas City. After almost 40 years at the Kansas City Star, he won the 2017 "Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism" from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.[1]

He is also author or co-author of four books.

Early life

Diuguid was raised in St. Louis, son of Lincoln (1917–2015) and Nancy R. Diuguid. Lewis' father earned a PhD in organic chemistry from Cornell.[2] However, when Lincoln wanted to found "Du-Good Chemical" company in St. Louis in 1947, the financial markets were not available to African Americans. Instead, he raised money from relatives to buy the land for his company. That company manufactured cosmetics and other chemicals, while also providing jobs for young black people from the community and helping them into college and careers. Many neighboring black-owned businesses followed Du-Good Chemical in that regard.[3] Lewis said that his father had "always dreamed of running his own business on a city block full of black business owners"; he turned those dreams into reality.[4]

Lewis Diuguid is actually Lewis Walter Diuguid, 2nd, named after his paternal grandfather,[5] not his father.

Adult life

In 1977 Diuguid earned a Bachelor of Journalism (BJ) from the Missouri School of Journalism, part of the University of Missouri at Columbia.[6] With his BJ, he started reporting for the Kansas City Times, which at that time was the morning edition of the Kansas City Star. When the Star stopped publishing the Times in 1990, they kept Diuguid. In 2000, he received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism.[7]

Diuguid later said that when he first came to Kansas City, he planned to stay about two years. Not quite half a century later, he was still there. A 2019 bio said that he had lived in the Indian Mound neighborhood of Northeast Kansas City since 2009, raising two daughters there.[8]

In 2011, Diuguid received the Local Journalist Award from the American Journalism Historians Association. The citation mentioned his accomplishments as a columnist and member of the editorial board of the Star and as a co-chair of the Star's diversity initiatives. The award citation also said he had funded scholarships to help students of color pursue careers in journalism.[6] He resigned from the Star after almost 40 years with them.[9]

For Diuguid's 2004 book on A Teacher’s Cry: Expose the Truth About Education Today, he conducted numerous interviews with students of the Class of 1999 at Washington High School in Kansas City, Kansas, from their freshman year until graduation.[10] Goodreads says, "The manuscript insists that community involvement in the schools and in the classrooms is how education can best be improved."[11]

In 2015 he won the Angelo B. Henderson Community Service Award from the National Association of Black Journalists for his "positive effect on the community beyond the normal journalism realm."[12]

In 2016 he won the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, "In recognition of his commitment to excellence in journalism as well as his work as a newsroom leader and role model for young journalists". The announcement of the award mentioned "his nearly 40-year career as a reporter, editor, columnist and editorial board member at The Kansas City Star". It also said he had "distinguished himself as a relentless advocate for newsroom diversity." And it said, "He tirelessly used his voice to draw attention to societal inequities, write about civil rights and highlight systemic injustices." It also mentioned the two books he had published by that time, Diiuguid (2004, 2007).[13]

His 2017 biography of his father was well received. KCUR, the NPR station in Kansas City, carried an interview with him about that book. They said that Lewis "takes us back to" the city block in St. Louis where he grew up.[4] Lewis was also interviewed about that book by Harold Smith for KC Studio, an arts magazine in Kansas City.[14] In addition, Lewis received the 2017 Philip C. Chinn Book Award from the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) in recognition of the value of that book.[14] The St. Louis American, a leading African American weekly newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, reported that the Saint Louis Science Center celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2018 with Lewis discussing that book.[3]

Diuguid was an invited speaker at the eighth annual Greater Kansas City Peacebuilding Conference in 2020 discussing “Disinformation, Civil Rights Protests, and Social Justice.”[15]

He has also served as the chair of the Political Action Committee for NAME.[7] And he partnered for many years with Bette Tate-Beaver, who served as executive director of NAME from 2009 until her death 29 August 2021.[16] That partnership helped raise awareness of "sins of both commission and omission [that] disenfranchised, ignored and scorned generations of Black Kansas Citians”, leading to an official apology in 2020 by the Kansas City Star of their contributions to those "sins".[17]

In 2024 he completed a book on Exploring Cuba : erasing fears through multicultural education with Tate-Beaver,[18] who had died over two years earlier. The book describes cultural and professional exchanges with trips to Cuba organized by NAME between 2015 and 2019 with additional comments on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on US-Cuba relations.[19]

Notes

  1. ^ Nieman News 2016. sfn error: no target: CITEREFNieman_News_2016 (help)
  2. ^ Lincoln I. Diuguid, Wikidata Q126018639
  3. ^ a b Karins (2018).
  4. ^ a b Kaufmann and Long-Middleton (2017).
  5. ^ Lewis Walter Diuguid, Wikidata Q126018867
  6. ^ a b Missouri School of Journalism 2011. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMissouri_School_of_Journalism_2011 (help)
  7. ^ a b Wolfe (2022).
  8. ^ Northeast News 2019. sfn error: no target: CITEREFNortheast_News_2019 (help)
  9. ^ Margolies (2016); Nieman News (2016).
  10. ^ Diuguid 2004. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDiuguid2004 (help)
  11. ^ Goodreads 2004. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGoodreads_2004 (help)
  12. ^ Horsley 2015. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHorsley_2015 (help)
  13. ^ Nieman News (2016); Porter (2016); Diuguid (2017a).
  14. ^ a b Smith (2017).
  15. ^ Youngblood 2020. sfn error: no target: CITEREFYoungblood_2020 (help)
  16. ^ PeaceWorks Kansas City 2021. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPeaceWorks_Kansas_City_2021 (help)
  17. ^ Wolfe 2020. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWolfe_2020 (help)
  18. ^ Tate-Beaver & Diuguid 2024. sfn error: no target: CITEREFTate-BeaverDiuguid_2024 (help)
  19. ^ Wolfe (2024); The Call (2024).

References

  • The Call (1 March 2024). "Former Kansas City Star columnist speaks about his new book". The Call. Wikidata Q126088566.
  • Lewis Diuguid (2004), A Teacher’s Cry: Expose the Truth About Education Today', BrownWalker Press, LCCN 2008357355, Wikidata Q126074936
  • Lewis Diuguid (2007), Discovering the Real America: Toward a More Perfect Union, BrownWalker Press, LCCN 2008357356, Wikidata Q126075403
  • Lewis Diuguid (2017a). "Lewis Diuguid: "Harness the best that our diversity has to offer"". Nieman Reports (published 22 February 2017). ISSN 0028-9817. Wikidata Q126089563.
  • Lewis Diuguid (2017b). Our fathers : making black men. Universal Publishers (published 2017). ISBN 978-1-62734-099-1. LCCN 2017932463. Wikidata Q126018513.
  • Goodreads (30 October 2004), review of A Teacher's Cry: Expose the Truth about Education Today, Wikidata Q126075084
  • Lynn Horsley (23 May 2015). "The Star's Lewis Diuguid wins a national journalism award". The Kansas City Star. ISSN 0745-1067. Wikidata Q126082422.
  • Jessica Karins (1 January 2018). "Our fathers, our chemists: Science Center hosted celebration of Lincoln Diuguid by his son Lewis". The St. Louis American. Wikidata Q126079953.
  • Gina Kaufmann; Matthew Long-Middleton (17 April 2017), Lewis Duiguid's Memoir To His Father; Getting To Know KU's Aquatic Beetle Expert, Central Standard, Wikidata Q126076227
  • Dan Margolies (30 September 2016). "Longtime KC Star Editorial Board Member Lewis Diuguid Stepping Down". KCUR-FM. Wikidata Q126048600.
  • "Dean Mills and Lewis Diuguid, BJ '77, Honored by American Journalism Historians Association". Missouri School of Journalism. 24 October 2011. Wikidata Q126042617.
  • Nieman News (15 December 2016). "Lewis W. Diuguid wins Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism at Harvard". Nieman News. Wikidata Q126014946.
  • Northeast News (23 October 2019). "Faces of Northeast: Lewis Diuguid". Kansas City Northeast News. Wikidata Q126097271.
  • PeaceWorks KC (9 October 2021), Bette Tate-Beaver died Aug. 29, Wikidata Q126087582
  • Toriano Porter (15 December 2016). "Former Star staffer gets journalism integrity award, going to Harvard as visiting fellow". The Kansas City Star. ISSN 0745-1067. Wikidata Q126097455.
  • Harold Smith (9 March 2018). "An Ode to True Black Manhood". KC Studio. Wikidata Q126086781.
  • Bette Tate-Beaver; Lewis Diuguid (2024). Exploring Cuba : erasing fears through multicultural education. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-032-54894-4. LCCN 2023036636. Wikidata Q126016581.
  • Donna Wolfe (26 December 2020). "Lewis Diuguid, Journalist-While-Black at the KC Star and Bette Tate-Beaver, Multi-Cultural Educator on KC Star's Apology". KKFI. Urban Connections. Wikidata Q126087651.
  • Donna Wolfe; Lewis Diuguid (27 August 2022). "Author, activist Lewis W. Diuguid on the "Great Replacement Theory" and other hard-right ideas". Urban Connections. Wikidata Q126089672.
  • Donna Wolfe (13 January 2024). "Lewis W. Diuguid, author, on his latest work Exploring Cuba: Erasing Fears through Multicultural Education". KKFI. Urban Connections. Wikidata Q126088498.
  • Steven Youngblood (19 September 2020). "KC conference will give us the tools to build meaningful peace". The Kansas City Star. ISSN 0745-1067. Wikidata Q126089762.