MEMPHIS — Otis Sanford launched his memoir, "Newsman: The Road from Route 2 Box 9," at an event on June 16 at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. Television news anchor Joe Birch hosted the book launch, which approximately 300 people attended.

Sanford, who grew up in Como, Mississippi, served as a professor emeritus in journalism and held the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism at the University of Memphis. The memoir's title refers to the postal delivery address of his childhood home.

He wrote the memoir to fulfill a promise to his mother, who lived to be 101 years old. "I promised my mother that our family story was just so incredible that I was going to write it one day," he said.

His journalism career spans 50 years and includes employment at regional daily newspapers in Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. In 1977, he, Karanja A. Ajanaku, and Jerome Wright were the only Black reporters at a major Memphis daily newspaper.

"Ours was a friendship based on our love of journalism, our pride in racial heritage and our desire to just own our beats," he said. "Unfortunately, both of them have passed away, but they will always be my amigos."

Birch met him inside a stairwell in a federal building in downtown Memphis before the September 11, 2001 attacks. "He really was giving me a lesson in journalism before he ever became a professor," Birch said.