Luther Keith, the youngest person ever inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame, was convinced his friend and fellow musician, the longtime Detroit reporter, editor, and columnist Keith Owens, deserved the same recognition.
Twice he nominated Owens for enshrinement.
Twice Owens was denied.
So what did Luther do? Nominate him a third time, of course.
“They sent the same damn rejection letter both years!” Owens recalls. “But Luther said this wasn’t just an award. This was the Hall of Fame. So I said, ‘OK, we’ll go a third time.’ Lu did not ever, ever give up.”
In February, Owens received a call from Luther: “Meet me at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge.” He wanted to break the news in person: Owens would be joining the MJHOF class of 2025. To celebrate, Luther, a self-taught blues guitarist and songwriter who labored to win the respect of Detroit’s music community as Luther “Badman” Keith, would throw a party for Owens on March 4 at Baker’s, and they would jam the night away onstage like old times.
When the celebration ended, “Luther said, ‘Man, I think this is the best night I’ve ever had,’” Owens remembers. “I woke up about 5:30 and there was a text from him at 12:45 that said, ‘I just want you to know this was a really great night. Everybody had a ball.’ I texted him back and just said, ‘Thank you so much.’”
Keith never saw the text. Luther Alton Keith, the native Detroiter, trailblazing newsman, and founder and executive director of the volunteer coalition ARISE Detroit for nearly two decades, died peacefully in his sleep that night at 74. And how fitting that he should leave upon achieving victories in the greatest loves of his life — after his wife, Jacqueline, and daughter, Erin — journalism and music.
Now, something Luther Keith the editor might abhor: a sudden first-person reflection. When I was asked to write this tribute to Luther, I leaped at the opportunity. I’d known him since coming to Detroit in the ’70s, and for me, as with countless others, he served as role model, confidant, and inspiration. After working his way off The Detroit News loading dock and into the newsroom, the University of Detroit (now Detroit Mercy) alum launched a three-decade career at the News that abounded with firsts:
- The first Black sports writer at a Detroit daily newspaper.
- The first Black reporter to cover the Michigan statehouse in Lansing (what fun that must have been).
- The first Black assignment editor at the News.
- As assistant managing editor, the first Black person to adorn the News masthead in the paper’s history.
I was advised that if I quoted two or three people, I might be given more space for this remembrance. I laughed out loud. Two or three? There are hundreds, if not thousands, who would leap to sing the praises of Luther Keith. His life touched so many others’, always in a positive way.
Take Wayne State University’s Journalism Institute for Minorities (now the Journalism Institute for Media Diversity), which Luther helped to establish in 1985. Countless WSU alums of color credit their career paths to that training; Kim Trent, deputy director for prosperity for the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity and former chair of the WSU Board of Governors, says Luther changed her life.
“In his obituary, they told how he got a call offering him a scholarship to the University of Detroit, and he never knew who recommended him or how he got it,” she relates. “He did the exact same thing to me. He called my house out of the clear blue sky and told my mother, ‘We want to offer your daughter a full ride to Wayne State to study journalism.’
“It’s funny, but I realize now I never asked him how he got my name or why I was offered that amazing opportunity. But because of it, I was on my way.”
He was a bad man, all right. ARISE Detroit will present a relatively subdued appreciation of Luther at its major event, the 19th annual Neighborhoods Day, on Aug. 2, explains Leslie Andrews, ARISE board chair and interim executive director while Luther’s successor is being found.
“We’d like to feature Luther’s picture on all the collateral materials, yard signs, banners,” she says. “We were holding off doing anything big because next year is our 20th [anniversary]. That was actually his plan, to do something big on the 20th. Actually, he had given hints of retirement.”
Andrews had worked alongside Luther on the ARISE board since 2008. How would she describe him? “The bluesman who was a newsman, but who really was a truth seeker,” she rhapsodizes. “Detroit’s biggest champion. An example by which to follow on staying the course. He understood that it was important for people to value not only themselves but their environment and their communities.”
This story originally appeared in the July 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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