From June 1948 to August 1950, Richard Durham was the force behind Chicago radio's Destination Freedom, a lyrical, politically outspoken weekly half-hour series of programs that dramatized the lives and accomplishments of various contemporary and historical black leaders. The series was an uncompromising, well-written presentation of dignified African­ American images during a time when few such images existed in American media. Durham's scripts creatively and consistently rallied against racial, social, and economic injustice.

Early Years

  Richard Durham was one of eight children born to a father who was a farmer and a mother who was a schoolteacher in rural Raymond, Mississippi. In 1923, when Durham was six years old, his family moved to Chicago, joining the large migration of African Americans from the agricultural South who sought better employment and education opportunities in the  industrial North. Durham attended Chicago public schools, became an avid reader, briefly enrolled in Northwestern University, and wrote poetry in his spare time.

     During the Depression, Durham landed a job with the Illinois Writers Project, a state program that was an outgrowth of the federal government's Works Progress Administration. As a member of the project's radio division, he wrote for several shows that aired on Chicago stations during the early 1940s.

     Ever the versatile writer, Durham also worked as an editor and print journalist for the Chicago-based and black owned Chicago Defender newspaper and Ebony magazine during World War II. After the war he was hired to write for a 15- minute weekly drama series entitled Democracy USA, which aired on WBBM, Chicago's Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) affiliate station. Durham continued to hone his writing skills by creating a soap opera that dealt with the trials and triumphs of a fictitious black family. As one of the first soap operas of its day concentrating on African American characters, Here Comes Tomorrow aired on Chicago radio's WJJD from 1947 to 1948.

    But Durham also longed to counter the stereotypical portrayal of African Americans on shows such as Amos 'n' Andy and Beulah by dramatically highlighting the accomplishments of black historical, cultural, educational, and political leaders-from figures such as slavery abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture, or cultural icons John Henry and Stackalee, to more contemporary movers and shakers such as poet Gwendolyn Brooks and statesman Ralph Bunche. Destination Freedom became Durham's brilliant means of expression.

Destination Freedom

     Durham fortuitously approached Chicago's National Broadcasting Company (NBC) affiliate WMAQ with his series proposal during a time when there was a somewhat more liberal atmosphere in the post-World War II media. In fact, the director of WMAQ's public affairs and education division was Judith Waller, a woman who was passionate about and committed to public-service programming.

     Durham was granted a weekly half-hour spot, and Destination Freedom debuted at roAM on Sunday morning, 27 June 1948. Each week, the series opened with an a cappella rendering of the African-American spiritual "Oh Freedom." An announcer briefly introduced the episode's specific focus, and then Durham began weaving his story--cleverly using actors, sound effects, and music to bring his scripts to life.

     Durham was an inventive writer who used innovative storytelling methods. Often, objects or concepts became personalities. For example, in "Anatomy of an Ordinance," urban slums were personified by an arrogant character who was proud of his discriminatory origins, and Louis Armstrong's trumpet verbally guided listeners through the great musician's life in "The Trumpet Speaks." Additionally, in "The Rime of the Ancient Dodger," humorously rhymed verse helped to dramatize Jackie Robinson's integration of major-league baseball in 1947.

     In one of the series' strongest productions, the award-win­ning "The Heart of George Cotton," Durham cast a human heart as a narrator. Accompanied by the sound of fluctuating heartbeats, Durham's heart character intimately involves the audience in an open-heart operation. This episode paid tribute to African-American surgeons Ulysses Grant Dailey and the legendary Daniel Hale Williams-the first doctor to successfully suture a human heart in 1893.

     One of Durham's recurring themes maintained that until all people enjoyed social and economic freedom, the fight against oppression would continue. In fact, Destination Freedom characters such as slavery revolt leader Denmark Vesey and reconstruction senator Charles Caldwell actually verbalized this sentiment-one rarely heard on radio at that time. Also, Durham championed women's rights in his characterizations of such African-American pioneers as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, choreographer Katherine Dunham, and journalist/activist Ida B. Wells.

     Durham spent hours in the library poring over historical documents to find material for his scripts. He attempted to avoid overtly didactic script writing approaches, opting to tell stories that might emotionally capture listeners and encourage them to draw their own conclusions.

     Apparently, his approach worked. The show was enthusiastically received by many Chicago listeners-despite an airtime that Durham disliked because of its proximity to Sunday morning worship services. By the end of its first year, Destination Freedom had garnered several awards, along with praise from citizens' groups, the Chicago Board of Education, and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. But there were also complaints. Some considered the series too radical, and groups such as the American Legion and the Knights of Columbus protested certain episodes. But because of the largely positive attention that Destination Freedom brought to the station, WMAQ continued the series. However, the station never sought to broadcast the series to a national audience, in part because it was believed that Southern stations would refuse to air it.

     Inside WMAQ, which financially supported Destination Freedom (the Chicago Defender and the Urban League also briefly sponsored the series), Durham regularly fought with station censors. There were attempts to soften Durham's characterization of Revolutionary War hero Crispus Attucks, and proposed programs on such legendary figures as Paul l.obeson and Nat Turner were rejected because they were considered too controversial. One show on abolitionist and statesman Frederick Douglass was so heavily edited that it would have been only 20 minutes long had it been produced with the proposed cuts. Durham and his predominantly African-American cast of socially conscious actors protested, and much of the edited material was restored.

     WMAQ ended its support of Richard Durham's Destina­tion Freedom during the summer of 1950, sparked by the rising conservatism of the budding anti-Communist period. After Durham's departure, the series lasted for a short period featuring traditional white heroes. But Durham sued WMAQ, preventing the station from continuing to use the Destination Freedom name.

     Richard Durham sustained his politically astute creativity through work as a Chicago-based television scriptwriter, news­ paper editor, author, and political speechwriter until his death in 1984. But he is perhaps best remembered for his brilliantly written and historically significant Destination Freedom radio series.