BU Libraries acquire the papers of pioneering journalist Dorothy Butler Gilliam
Photos by Jackie Ricciardi for Boston University
The Special Collections division of the Boston University Libraries has acquired the papers of Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the reporter, columnist, and educator who was the first Black woman journalist at the Washington Post. This major acquisition by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center of the BU Libraries provides access to the journalist’s notes, drafts, correspondences, and other documents, and highlights the significant role archives play through building and preserving archival collections that enable research and study in critical areas like journalism and the Civil Rights Movement in America.
This acquisition brings Dorothy Butler Gilliam’s papers into conversation with the influential civil and human rights leaders whose papers are also here at Boston University, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Howard and Sue Bailey Thurman, Elie Wiesel, and a diverse group of journalists who documented the fight for – and themselves helped advance—civil rights in the United States.
“Dorothy Butler Gilliam’s papers show that the movement happens one article, story, or column at a time. Just as Dr. King’s papers show that the non-violent movement happens one decision and one action at a time. It is the small moments that make up a movement,” said Jennifer Gunter King, associate university librarian for special collections. “Viewed in the context of the papers of these human rights leaders, journalists, poets, and others, we have a fuller picture of how many levels of society must be engaged and involved in moving civil and human rights forward.”
Dorothy Butler Gilliam worked for The Memphis Tri-State Defender and JET magazine, outlets focused on Black communities. In 1961, she made history, joining The Washington Post as a reporter on its City Desk. There, she covered the civil rights movement and later became an editor and columnist. Throughout her career, she was committed to improving newsroom diversity, co-founding in 1977 what would become the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, and in 1998, founding the Young Journalists Development Program to educate, cultivate, and hire aspiring minority newspaper journalists.
The Dorothy Butler Gilliam collection documents her career as a journalist and educator through personal and professional correspondence, notes, drafts and manuscripts, reporter’s notebooks, daily planners, speeches, printed materials, and research files. This collection joins the papers of several other Black media pioneers and professionals held by the Gotlieb Center, including: William Monroe Trotter, who founded The Guardian of Boston; the archives of the Bay State Banner; and the papers of Alex Poinsett, former editor for EBONY and co-founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.
The Dorothy Butler Gilliam collection be open to researchers for use by 2026. A selection of materials is on display at the Howard Thurman Center as part of the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center’s exhibition The Work of Trailblazers and Pioneers Through Their Archives.
Read more about this acquisition in BU Today: Groundbreaking Journalist Dorothy Gilliam Gives BU a Gift of History