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After a decade as a provocative and plain-spoken columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, Bill Maxwell is returning to the classroom. Bill is giving up what he calls a "dream job" on Florida's largest daily newspaper to become a journalism professor at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (see his column on front of this section). Our loss will be Stillman's gain, and I don't doubt for a minute that Bill will make a difference in the lives of the students he touches along the way.
If there is any good news in all of this, it is that Bill has agreed to write an occasional commentary for our opinion pages when he feels he has something to contribute. When has he not? Bill may be a yellow-dog Democrat in his politics, but he is also an independent thinker who defies labeling. Over the years he has been both applauded and denounced by conservatives and liberals, by whites and blacks.
Even though he is taking up a new challenge in another state, Bill will remain with us in faith and spirit. He leaves with the affection and respect of his colleagues on the Times editorial board, which has benefitted immensely from the discussions he has led on everything from race relations to education, from religion to the madness in the Middle East - even when we have disagreed with him.
I learned of Bill's decision last December when he stopped by my office and handed me a letter explaining why he felt a call to resume his teaching career. He wrote: "After 10 years at the Times, I need to move on and do something I have planned to do since I attended Wiley College as a freshman in 1963 - teach at a black college or university. I want to teach black students - especially males - who, as I was, have been failed along the way in this racially inequitable nation, kids who may not have gotten a real break at their high schools or at the mostly white colleges from which they transferred."
Stillman is a cash-strapped, predominantly black college that needs more professors with Bill's professional credentials and reputation. He will take a pay cut, but he says "returning to teach at a black school will be my way of keeping a promise I made to the professors who taught and nurtured me at Wiley and Bethune-Cookman."
His departure will be applauded by some readers, both black and white, but many others will miss his compelling voice on our opinion pages. I've seen some of the hateful e-mails and letters he has received from white racists, and I have heard of the incidents where African-Americans who resent his straight talk on what ails St. Petersburg's black neighborhoods have physically accosted him in parking lots and grocery stores. A local barber asked Bill not to come around his shop because some of his black customers didn't want to be in the same room with him. Some local Jewish leaders have denounced his commentaries on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, accusing him of a pro-Palestinian bias. Bill even has his critics inside the Times' newsroom. Through it all, Bill has stood his ground.
Bill was my first hire after I became editor of editorials in 1991 - and one of my best. I had been reading his weekly column in the Gainesville Sun and liked the intellect and passion he brought to his writing. He first turned me down, but I finally persuaded him to give up his Sun column and his teaching position at Santa Fe Community College to join the Times editorial board.
His column was controversial from the start. Readers either loved what he had to say or hated it, but they kept reading him. Over the years Bill has played an important role in shaping not only the discussions inside the Times editorial board meetings but also the broader public debate in our community and state. He has been a powerful voice on the plight of Florida's farm workers. He knows firsthand what their lives are like because he grew up in a family of farm workers in South Florida.
He also knows that education is the great liberator for a young man determined to escape the hard life of a farm worker. He earned an English degree at Bethune-Cookman College and a master's degree in English language and literature at the University of Chicago. Bill devours books, and he can talk philosophy, ethics, morality, poetry and history the way some of us talk politics or sports. But books alone cannot satisfy Bill's quest for knowledge and meaning, especially in this era of globalization. He believes world travel is an important part of anyone's education. He sets off next week for South Africa.
At this point in his life, Bill believes he can make a greater difference in the classroom than on any op-ed page. We are grateful for the decade Bill gave this newspaper, and we will follow his teaching career with confidence and great admiration.
- Philip Gailey's e-mail address is Gailey@sptimes.com.