Dorothy Butler Gilliam

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the Washington Post’s former reporter, editor and columnist, in 1961, historically became The Post’s first black female reporter. During her distinguished career, spanning more than five decades, she has become a revered icon in American journalism, a fierce advocate for women’s rights, a fervent civil rights activist and renowned author. “Journalism took me places that I would not normally go,” Gilliam says.

Most recently, in January 2019, Gilliam published her riveting memoir, “Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More like America.” Spurred by numerous public speaking and book-signing engagements and bicoastal news media interviews, including one on The Daily show with Trevor Noah, Gilliam’s autobiography has become a hot-selling item. The book’s first printing nearly sold out within three months, as readers devoured Gilliam’s historic, poignant and first-hand accounts of the evolution of journalism, social and political discourse – and civil rights in America.

Gilliam began her more distinguished journalistic career in the segregated South, as a reporter for the Memphis Tri-State Defender, a black-owned newspaper. There, she covered major civil rights events, including the Little Rock Nine, the federally enforced integration of Arkansas’ public schools. In 1961, Gilliam became The Post’s first female black reporter. One of her early assignments was covering James Meredith’s integration of Ole Miss. At that time, Mississippi was infamously known in American black circles as “The Land of Black Death.” On this assignment, skirting active Ku Klux Klan members, Gilliam literally “slept with the dead,” catching a few hours of nightly rest in a black funeral parlor, later filing her story entitled: “Mississippi Mood: Hope and Fear.”

She worked for The Post for more than 30 years, moving from reporter to editor – and then attaining pundit status as a columnist, covering politics, education and race relations. She also served as president of the National Association of Black Journalists and founding director of the Young Journalists Development Project. At The Post, and via those organizations, she championed the cause, preparation and integration of female reporters into mainstream America’s news media.

In the mid-60’s, Gilliam left The Post to devote more time to her children, but kept her hand in journalism as a part-time reporter for WTTG TV’s Panorama program in Washington, D.C., while writing free-lance magazine articles. She returned to The Post in 1972, as its Style section assistant editor, recasting that section from a mere lens into contemporary women’s fashion, into wider, and much-emulated discourse (among U.S. newspapers) reflecting women’s interests and issues.

Gilliam moved from editor to columnist, in 1979, at The Post, opining about education, politics, race, sometimes sharing anecdotes gleaned from her personal experiences. She left that position in 1998 to found and develop the Young Journalists Development Program, The Post’s long-term initiative to educate, cultivate and hire aspiring young minority journalists. She retired from The Post in June 2003 and for the following two years served as Jet Magazine’s associate editor.

In addition to writing her latest book, Gilliam has authored “Paul Robeson, All American,” and contributed to “The Edge of Change: Women in the 21st Century Press: 2009.” Gilliam earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., and her master’s degree at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. 

In 1979, she won Columbia’s School’s Journalism Alumni of the Year Award, and in 1991, she was honored as a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia, where she studied racial diversity in American media. In 1996, she became a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University.

Gilliam was born in Memphis, Tenn., and grew up in Louisville, Ky. She was married to the renowned abstract artist Sam Gilliam, with whom she has three daughters and three grandchildren. She is a member of the Metropolitan A.M.E Church in Washington, D.C., where she serves on its Steward Board and chairs its Commission on Public Relations.

Here are some thoughts Gilliam’s contemporaries have shared about her and her latest work:

Pulitzer Prize-Winning & Former Washington Post Reporter Carl Bernstein: “Dorothy’s inspirational life story is the journey of a daughter of the South who became a pioneering black woman journalist, an influential voice in the pages of The Washington Post, a national leader of the movement to foster diversity in the news media, and a dedicated mentor to countless aspiring young journalists. And, it (her latest book) is a welcome gift for colleagues and readers who have benefited from her work and presence in our lives.”

Former Washington Post Publisher Don Graham: Dorothy is a great reporter, a pioneer for all women in the news business, and African American women particularly. Her story is about a time in American journalism where courage and brilliance were called for in the white-male bastions that were American newsrooms. It’s (her latest book) a story that has been waiting a long time to be told.”

Gloria Steinem, Feminist, Writer, Editor, Lecturer and Co-Creator of New York and Ms. magazines: Dorothy Gilliam is that most rare of revolutionaries, one who not only climbs the barricades, but let’s down a ladder to help others up, too.”

Born in Memphis, Tenn., Gilliam grew up in Louisville, Ky. and graduated cum laude from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo. with a B.A. in Journalism. She earned her master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and was honored as a recipient of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism Alumni of the Year Award in 1979. In 1991, she was a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University, studying racial diversity in the American media. In the fall of 1996, she was a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. 

Among the honors she has received are Lifetime Achievement Awards of the Washington Press Club Foundation in 2010, induction into the Society of Professional Journalists’ Hall of Fame in 2002 by the Washington, D.C. Chapter, induction into the NABJ Hall of Fame in 1992; winner of the University of Missouri Honor Medal in Journalism in 1998; the Unity Award in Journalism from Lincoln (Mo.) University; and the Ann O’Hare McCormick Award from the New York Newspaper Women’s Club while a student at Columbia.