| Summary: | Professor and newspaper reporter Usher Francis Ward was born in Atlanta, Georgia on August 11, 1935. After graduating high school, Ward attended Morehouse College, earning his B.A. degree in 1958, and then earned his M.A. degree in journalism from Syracuse in 1961. In 1964, Ward was hired by Jet magazine, and four years later, he joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times. There, he covered the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the aftermath, as well as writing a tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks. During the 1970s, Ward worked for the L.A. Times and the Miami Herald, and in 1984, he joined the press corps for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. He remained there through Eugene Sawyer's term, leaving in 1989. In 1990, Ward returned to his alma mater, Syracuse, to teach journalism. He married actress Val Gray.
|
|---|
