NEW CARROLLTON, MD. — “Come on in, brother! Come on!”
I heard the welcoming voice of my friend and colleague Hamil R. Harris as soon as I stepped out of my car in his Washington, D.C.-area driveway.
On a recent East Coast trip, my son Brady, 7-year-old grandson Bennett and I saw our favorite team, the Texas Rangers, play the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. In the nation’s capital, we explored sites such as the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.
But for me, a highlight of the trip was seeing Harris, a former longtime Washington Post reporter who serves on The Christian Chronicle’s Editorial Board.
“Y’all made it to the ’hood!” Harris said enthusiastically. “Come in, and give me a hug.”
The 66-year-old father of four has battled health issues in recent years. Still, he preaches regularly for the Glenarden Church of Christ in Maryland.
For years, Terry Mattingly, a nationally syndicated religion columnist, invited Harris to speak to students at the Washington Journalism Center, a former program of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.
Mattingly still recalls Harris’ attention to detail, including when he covered an anniversary of the 1968 D.C. riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Harris wanted to see the riots through the eyes of those who experienced them. So he rode buses through affected neighborhoods and took notes.
“Harris marked key buildings that were still in ruins,” Mattingly said. “Then he went back and wrote down the graffiti on the buildings.
“My students simply could not imagine going into that level of detail,” the columnist added. “But Harris didn’t settle for vague adjectives and sloppy adverbs. He sweated the details.”
The Washington Association of Black Journalists honored Harris in 2022 with its inaugural Legacy Award.
“Hamil is a celebrity in the D.C. journalism scene,” said Michelle Boorstein, the Post’s longtime religion writer. “Hamil is respected by and connected to so, so many people active in religious life in the D.C. area.