Dorothy Leavell
2023
By Eunice Trotter and Virginia Black
For the past 55 years, Dorothy R. Leavell has served as editor and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group, the Chicago and Gary, Indiana, papers that were co-founded by her first husband, the late Balm L. Leavell Jr. One nominator calls her “an icon of the industry, a trailblazer, a mentor, role model and living legend.”
After Balm’s death in 1968, Dorothy took over the Chicago Crusader and the Gary Crusader. Through tremendous social, political and cultural changes in both cities, she has remained a relevant and potent force.
“Since 1968, she has been the quintessential representation of media excellence combined with commitment to myriad social and economic imperatives of Black people who otherwise would have no voice,” longtime Gary media veteran Vernon Williams wrote. “It is impossible to measure the number of lives that have been touched by Dorothy Leavell. … As a journalist, Mrs. Leavell has enabled a consistent narrative of the highest journalistic imperatives with relentless compassion, fairness and courage.”
Leavell has long believed her audience deserves coverage of issues outside the mainstream. The Crusader newspapers rarely run crime stories, for instance, because, as Leavell has said, other media focus too much on crime, especially when the accused are Black.
“I decided to use my pages to talk about matters and issues and topics that aren’t found in mainstream media, and frankly, rarely in other Black papers,” she said in an interview with the Chicago Defender.
Since its founding the Chicago Crusader has remained in the same location on the city’s south side. Despite drastic economic shifts in the neighborhood, neither Leavell, her staff, nor her property has ever suffered harm. “The people in the community know what we do, and they respect us,” she told the Defender.
Attorney and former Lake County Sheriff Ray Dominguez wrote that Leavell “has mentored many aspiring journalists for over her half-century and still has the passion and energy to continue her life’s work.”
U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan believes her inclusion in the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame is “worthy of this organization’s esteemed members, and her achievements thus far represent the ideals to practice and defend journalism in Indiana and beyond.”
Leavell has been a consistent advocate for justice, as well. The Chicago Crusader assisted in obtaining a commutation of the 40-year sentence of Howard Morgan, a Black former police officer who was shot 28 times by four active White police officers during a 2005 traffic stop. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn granted Morgan clemency in 2015.
In September 2018, Leavell became the chairman of the board of STM Reader, publishers of the Chicago Reader Newspaper. The previous year, she was elected chairman – for the third time – of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, the only Black newspaper trade organization. A member for more than 54 years, she also has served as chairman of the NNPA Foundation, overseer of the association’s philanthropic endeavors.
During her long association, Leavell has helped raise NNPA’s international profile. She led a controversial 20-member delegation to Nigeria to investigate a political crisis and was a vocal advocate for the contested and delayed confirmation of Alexis Herman as U.S. secretary of labor, ultimately attending Herman’s 1997 swearing-in ceremony.
As chairman of the NNPA Foundation, Leavell headed a committee to seek pardons for the “Wilmington Ten,” nine men and a woman wrongfully convicted in 1971 in Wilmington, North Carolina, on charges of arson and conspiracy. Most were sentenced to 29 years in prison, and all 10 spent nearly a decade behind bars before a successful appeal won their release. North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue pardoned them December 31, 2012.
A dedicated champion of the arts, Leavell has donated a personal art collection of 150 commissioned pieces to the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago. She also is a founding member of “Heroes in the Hood,” a program recognizing young people whose volunteer and heroic deeds have gone largely unrecognized. She has served as chairman of the National Black Chamber of Commerce and as board member of the National Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
Leavell has often been honored and recognized for her philanthropic and civic contributions. Among her many awards are the Ida B. Wells Legacy Award, the Katie Hall Public Service Award, and the Chicago Urban League’s Lester H. McKeever Jr. Individual Service Award.
She has been honored as Indiana’s “Attorney General for a Day” and by the National Association of Black Media Women. She has won the Winnie Mandela Endurance with Dignity Award; Nation of Islam Distinguished Service Award; the Mary McLeod Bethune Award; the Chicago Defender’s Women of Excellence award; the Barnes & Thornburg Living Legend Award, and the Humanitarian Award from the Council on African Affairs.
She was named the Grand Ye Ye at the 24th annual African Festival of the Arts, and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn proclaimed Oct. 21, 2014, Dorothy Leavell Day. In 2022, she was inducted into the Illinois Black Hall of Fame and received the Illinois Press Association’s Distinguished Service Award. She now serves as that association’s chairman.
In Indiana, Leavell was feted by scores of groups and officials, including the Gary Branch NAACP; Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; the Lake County Council; State Rep. Vernon G. Smith, and the Urban League of Northwest Indiana.
National honors include the Arthur Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award and the Unbossed and Unbought Award presented by the National Black Chamber of Commerce. She was inducted into the Broadcasters Print Media Hall of Fame and the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.
Leavell is the second surviving child of Sallie and Blane Gonder. Her early formal education was in the public schools of Pine Bluff, where she graduated as valedictorian of her high school class. She attended Roosevelt University in Chicago.
Active in her faith at Holy Name of Mary Church in Chicago, she is married to John Smith, her second husband, and is the mother of two children and three grandchildren. She also raised a niece and nephew. The Smiths have a blended family that includes seven children, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Leavell is working on a memoir.