Leon Dash | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1944-03-16)March 16, 1944 (age 81) |
| Education | Howard University |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Notable credit | Pulitzer Prize-winner |
Leon Dash (born(1944-03-16)March 16, 1944, inNew Bedford, Massachusetts) is aprofessor ofjournalism at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A formerreporter for theWashington Post, he is the author ofRosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, which grew out of the eight-partWashington Post series for which he won thePulitzer Prize.
Dash grew up inNew York City and later attendedHoward University. He spent 1969-1970 as aPeace Corpshigh schoolteacher inKenya.[1] He joined theWashington Post in 1965 where he worked as a member of the special projects unit, as part of the investigative desk, and as theWest AfricaBureau Chief.
| External videos | |
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 Booknotes interview with Dash onRosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, November 10, 1996,C-SPAN |
Rosa Lee, which started as an eight-part series for theWashington Post in September 1994, is the story of one woman and her family's struggle against poverty in the projects of Washington, D.C.
Aside from winning aPulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for the story, the Rosa Lee piece was also the recipient of theRobert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was later published into a book. It was picked as one of the best 100 pieces in 20th-century American Journalism byNew York University's journalism department.
While living in the inner city of Washington, D.C., for a year, Dash researchedteenage pregnancy in black youths for his book,When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis of Teenage Childbearing. The book features conversations with teens and contains stories that contradict the common belief that inadequate birth control and lack of sex education classes are the causes of teenage pregnancy.
He received anEmmy Award in 1996 from theNational Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for a documentary series in the public affairs category of hard issues.
In 1998 Dash joined the University of Illinois as a professor of Journalism. He was later named the Swanlund Chair Professor of Journalism, Law, and Afro-American Studies in 2000. Three years later he was made a permanent faculty member in the University's Center for Advanced Study.
Dash is a founder of theNational Association of Black Journalists.[2]
A technical oversight on Dash's part led to his being sanctioned by the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission on October 31, 2014. A University of Illinois faculty colleague, physicist George D. Gollin, was running in the March 14, 2014 Democratic primary nomination for Illinois's U. S. Congressional District 13 Seat. Gollin sent a message to Dash on his University office computer about Dash introducing him at a local meeting. Dash replied on his University computer, "Please get the introduction to me tomorrow or early Sunday. Thanks." Dash was later questioned about his one-sentence reply by investigators from the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission regarding the use of his University computer for political purposes. Shown a copy of his one-sentence reply, Dash acknowledged he had replied to the email without giving any thought that he was not allowed to do so on a University computer even when the original message came into his email inbox. See[3]
On August 5, 2016, Dash was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) along with 43 other founders of the organization.
Three years later, on August 9, 2019, Dash was inducted into the NABJ's Hall of Fame a second time with his colleagues, the six other members of The WashingtonPost's Metro Seven. The Metro Seven was made up of seven WashingtonPost black reporters who filed a discrimination complaint against ThePost with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) on March 23, 1972, the first action of its kind against a major metropolitan American newspaper. Of the original seven, only four were able to attend the event. Including Dash, they are LaBarbara (Bobbi) Bowman, Ivan C. Brandon, Ronald (Ron) Taylor. Richard (Scoop) Prince and Penny Mickelbury were not able to attend. The seventh member, Mike Hodge, died Sept. 9, 2017.
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