Alice Dunnigan
Alice Dunnigan 1906 - 1983
Outside of winning the Pulitzer Prize for reporting, covering the White House is the most prestigious honor for a journalist in the United States. Alice Dunnigan was the first Black female correspondent accredited to cover the White House.
Dunnigan broke the media color barrier reporting on the White House and serving as the first Black female member of the press galleries for the Senate and House of Representatives. As head of the Associated Negro Press Washington Bureau, Dunnigan filed stories that were printed in over 100 Black newspapers nationwide.
Dunnigan’s impressive credentials did not end with Congress and the White House, she was also the first Black woman credentialed to report on the Supreme Court and the State Department. Dunnigan’s work along with her Black contemporaries was pivotal in documenting the struggle to earn Civil Rights. “Without black writers, the world would perhaps never have known of the chicanery, shenanigans, and buffoonery employed by those in high places to keep the black man in his (proverbial) place by relegating him to second-class citizenship,” Dunnigan wrote.
Dunnigan was tireless in her pursuit of the truth and desire to be near the action. She traveled with President Truman on his “whistle stop” 1948 campaign tour and held lawmakers accountable for their positions on civil rights legislation.
In 2013, Dunnigan was posthumously inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.
