Wil Haygood, a journalist famous for his Washington Post article “A Butler Well Served by This Election” that inspired the film “The Butler,’ visited Sinclair Community College on Dec. 9.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Haygood went to college at Hamilton’s Miami University, initially earning a degree in urban planning. After college he decided to start pursuing journalism, moving from paper to paper before eventually working for the Boston Globe. It is here where Haygood became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for stories about African American life in America.
His work would continue when he arrived at the Washington Post in 2002 where he would write about people’s lives all over the world. He would even be kidnapped by Somali rebels. However, his most famous piece of work was written in 2008, the aforementioned “A Butler Well Served by This Election.”
Chronicling the life of White House butler Eugene Allen, Haygood shines a light on a piece of history often overlooked, a man who has seen three decades of world-altering events firsthand. He would be invited to dinner by the Reagans and told happy birthday by Gerald Ford. Allen, who passed away in 2010, would not live to see a movie be made loosely based on his own life, which was released in 2013.
The film, Lee Daniels’ “The Butler,” takes the stories mentioned in the article and supplements them with further information and new details made for the film. Haygood was an associate producer on the film and wrote the novel to accompany it. After the film’s release, the journalist would write several more books, including “2015’s Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court that Changed America,” which detailed the life of the late Supreme Court Justice.
In 2018 saw Haygood release “Tigerland: 1968–1969: A City Divided, A Nation Torn Apart, And A Magical Season of Healing.” “Tigerland” is the story of a school winning both the Baseball and Basketball Championships, set in Haygood’s hometown of the segregated East Columbus. Haygood’s latest release came in October of 2021 and is the subject of his trip to Sinclair Community College.
“Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World” is a chronicle of the history of black filmmaking. Using the hateful “Birth of a Nation” as a starting point, Haygood singles out many films that illustrate the evolution of black cinema such as “12 Years a Slave” and “Do the Right Thing.” This event was held over Zoom, for more information on upcoming events, visit sinclair.edu/events/.
Alex Cutler
Reporter