Jeffrey L. Williams

I never set out to be a journalist. My plan was college, then law school.

The early part of my life spent on a rural farm in the Catskills left little time for TV, but storytelling abounded in my family. After moving to Brooklyn, my favorite playground was the neighborhood library where I discovered exotic people, places – and learned to dream. During summers on the farm, I read endlessly, fueled by the love of words my mom instilled early in her 11 kids.

In ways large and small, seen and unseen, I’ve made a difference at each stop. My journey, far from what I planned, has been worth it.

While my parents read the New York Daily News regularly, I’d never heard of nor seen a Black journalist until I began reading Earl Caldwell’s column in the newspaper. With his cropped Afro and serious stare, he was unapologetically Black, a bold crusader with a captivating style.

My law school plans were scuttled the day I saw State Police drag a fellow Black student from her car and roughly handcuff her at SUNY-New Paltz. A group of students began a tug of war to physically free the student from the cops, who trained their weapons on the unarmed crowd until the group relented.

The incident set off a wave of protests in the bucolic upstate Hudson Valley college town and triggered demands for changes in campus policing. I began writing for the Black campus newspaper, the Fahari. For me, it was the beginning of a quest to join and impact an industry that controlled the words, images and perceptions of those without power – and where faces like mine were few.

My more than 40-year career as a reporter and editor has taken me from the Frederick, Maryland, News-Post to the Lexington, Kentucky, Herald-Leader to the Hartford Courant, the Chicago Tribune and to Newsday, as the features editor. In ways large and small, seen and unseen, I’ve made a difference at each stop. My journey, far from what I planned, has been worth it.

At Newsday, I’m proudest of my contributions to the "Summer of Hell," about the Penn Station reconstruction work that upended LIRR riders’ lives for months; the NY Emmy Award-winning project "On the Shoulders of Giants," which sprouted from our concerns that aging Long Island civil rights activists and recent gains from George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police would fade; and to "Camp Siegfried: Revisiting a dark chapter in LI history."

In Explore LI, we have revamped our Real Estate and Travel sections into more user-friendly, exciting experiences for all our readers, especially millennials. Our Nostalgia content delights readers with walks down memory lane. Our Lifestyle and Entertainment teams are exploring more creative, engaging ways to tell unique Long Island stories. And upgrades in our digital and print offerings provide current and future subscribers the very best. Because they deserve it.