During World War II, Worthy was sentenced to one day in prison for dodging a physical examination for military service and failing to register at a conscientious objector's camp.

At the time he entered China, Worthy was the first American reporter to visit and broadcast from there since the country's communist revolution in 1949.

Without a passport, Worthy traveled to Cuba in the early days of Fidel Castro to report on the Cuban revolution.

However, in April 1962, he was summoned again to Miami, where he was tried and convicted for "returning to the United States without a valid passport."

Years later, Kunstler wrote in his autobiography, My Life As A Radical Lawyer, that the Worthy passport case was his "first experience arguing an issue about which I felt passionate," was the "first time I had ever invalidated a statute," and that success "confirmed my faith in the justice system.

"[7] The Committee for the Freedom of William Worthy was formed in 1962 and was chaired by A. Philip Randolph and Bishop D. Ward Nichols.

[2] In 1981, the luggage of Worthy and two other journalists working with him, Terri Taylor and Randy Goodman, containing paperback copies of classified CIA documents, was seized by the FBI on their return from Iran.

In 1947, he participated in the Journey of Reconciliation together with other prominent civil rights leaders, in which they challenged state segregation laws on public transport.

William Worthy and Michael Lindsey co-taught the first class in Critical Journalism in the country at the College of Public and Community service, a branch of UMass Boston, which Noam Chomsky attended as a guest lecturer.