Alone atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan, Pioneer of the National Black Press

by Carol McCabe Booker (Editor), Simeon Booker (Foreword by)

Overview

In 1942 Alice Allison Dunnigan, a sharecropper’s daughter from Kentucky, made her way to the nation’s capital and a career in journalism that eventually led her to the White House. With Alone atop the Hill, Carol McCabe Booker has condensed Dunnigan’s 1974 self-published autobiography to appeal to a general audience and has added scholarly annotations that provide historical context. Dunnigan’s dynamic story reveals her importance to the fields of journalism, women’s history, and the civil rights movement and creates a compelling portrait of a groundbreaking American.

Dunnigan recounts her formative years in rural Kentucky as she struggled for a living, telling bluntly and simply what life was like in a Border State in the first half of the twentieth century. Later she takes readers to Washington, D.C., where we see her rise from a typist during World War II to a reporter. Ultimately she would become the first black female reporter accredited to the White House; authorized to travel with a U.S. president; credentialed by the House and Senate Press Galleries; accredited to the Department of State and the Supreme Court; voted into the White House Newswomen’s Association and the Women’s National Press Club; and recognized as a Washington sports reporter.

A contemporary of Helen Thomas and a forerunner of Ethel Payne, Dunnigan traveled with President Truman on his coast-to-coast, whistle-stop tour; was the first reporter to query President Eisenhower about civil rights; and provided front-page coverage for more than one hundred black newspapers of virtually every race issue before the Congress, the federal courts, and the presidential administration. Here she provides an uninhibited, unembellished, and unvarnished look at the terrain, the players, and the politics in a roughand- tumble national capital struggling to make its way through a nascent, postwar racial revolution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820351384
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	02/15/2017
Pages:	242
Sales rank:	977,224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

CAROL McCABE BOOKER is a former journalist and Washington, D.C., attorney. She is coauthor with her husband, journalist Simeon Booker, of the highly acclaimed history Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Account of the Civil Rights Movement.

CAROL McCABE BOOKER is a former journalist and Washington, D.C., attorney. She is coauthor with her husband, journalist Simeon Booker, of the highly acclaimed history Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Account of the Civil Rights Movement.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Editor's Note xi

Preface 1

Part I Those Early Years

Chapter 1 No Greater Thrill 5

Chapter 2 The Family Tree and Its Bittersweet Fruit 9

Chapter 3 Alone atop a Hill 15

Chapter 4 School Days 25

Chapter 5 Where There's a Will 39

Chapter 6 The Job Hunt 46

Chapter 7 The Ups and Downs of My First Job 50

Chapter 8 A Plunge into the Sea of Matrimony 58

Chapter 9 A Rugged Voyage Ends 66

Chapter 10 Moving On 74

Chapter 11 Wading through the Depression 79

Chapter 12 Seeking Identity, Experience, and Recognition 90

Part II A Great New World

Chapter 13 Converging on Washington 103

Chapter 14 Breaking Down Race-and Gender-Barriers 107

Chapter 15 A Trip with the President 116

Chapter 16 The Civil Rights Fights of the Forties 134

Chapter 17 Profiles of Injustice 143

Chapter 18 The President Proposes; the Congress Debates 153

Chapter 19 Almost Pushing the Panic Button 163

Chapter 20 Freedom Fights of the Fifties 171

Chapter 21 Eisenhower's Pique 186

Epilogue 201

Acknowledgments 205

Notes 207

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

[This] book provides a fascinating timeline of history to enlighten a generation that takes it for granted that a black woman can be the most powerful media personality in the United States. . . . The editor tells the very specific stories reasonably well. . . . [Booker] machetes Dunnigan’s 1974 self-published book down to the adventure-filled bone. . . . [The] work is a fantastic prologue for study of black-oriented journalistic work in Washington, D.C. . . . But perhaps the most important audience for [Alone Atop the Hill] is young black women who want, as their employment, the ability to question high authority—those who are not afraid to step into the spotlight and fight for inclusion in Washington’s boys club on their own terms as independent African Americans.

The Root - Todd Steven Burroughs

Thanks to Carol Booker for bringing to light this marvelously documented life of Alice Dunnigan, who shattered racial and gender barriers as chief of the Associated Negro Press Bureau in Washington. In straightforward prose, Dunnigan gives the reader an unflinching look at how she persevered and how the Negro press kept civil rights before the public through the forties and fifties, preparing the way for when white America began to wake up. This is an honest history of the black experience from a woman whose first-person encounters with Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, too, lift the curtain and inform our understanding of how race played out then at the highest levels of government.

Daily Beast correspondent and McLaughlin Group panelist - Eleanor Clift

Dunnigan’s indelible self-portrait affirms that while the media landscape has changed, along with some social attitudes and practices, discrimination is far from vanquished, and we still need dedicated and brave journalists to serve as clarion investigators, witnesses, and voices of conscience.

Booklist (starred review) - Donna Seaman

Alone Atop the Hill is a poignant and revealing account of Alice Dunnigan's life from her childhood in rural poverty to her adulthood in education and journalism. The narrative casts valuable light on the politics of race prior to the emergence of the civil rights movement. From start to finish I was drawn into Dunnigan's stories, both personal and political.

Eric Arnesen

Here, hallelujah, is the rediscovered, spirited autobiography of the self-made, self-liberated Alice Dunnigan, the first African American female reporter to gain entry into the closed society of the White House and congressional news correspondents. This volume, wisely edited and lovingly reshaped by Carol Booker, is more than Dunnigan’s scrapbook of personal memories and the stories she covered. It's a living, sometimes surprising, and often uplifting history of the race, gender, and poverty obstacles that rose, then fell, in Jim Crow America in the twentieth century.

coauthor of The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation - Hank Klibanoff

This revised edition of Alice Dunnigan’s story deservedly elevates her to the pantheon of African American and female pioneers of American history. . . . Extensive footnotes place Dunnigan’s achievements in historical context and highlight just how remarkable some of them were, not just for a woman, not just for an African American, but for any journalist. . . . Alone Atop the Hill gives deserved recognition to a principled and hardworking reporter whose array of singular accomplishments makes her worthy of further scholarship and public attention.

Foreword Reviews - Rachel Jagareski

Booker’s annotated edit puts you smack-dab in the moment alongside Dunnigan and moves you smoothly and swiftly through her two-part journey. . . . Her lesson is timeless.

The Bay Weekly - Michelle Steel

Booker has done a wonderful job of bringing [the autobiography] back into print and her editor’s notes are terrific.

Eye on the Struggle Blog - James McGrath Morris

In Alone Atop the Hill, editor Carol McCabe Booker brings Dunnigan’s story to light. . . . Thanks to [the author], we can now read this remarkable account of a woman who rose from humble roots to become a respected civil rights journalist with unprecedented access to the corridors of power.

Hill Rag Magazine - Karen Lyon

Alice Dunnigan's autobiography tells a story that is still all too frequently unavailable - that of immense professional accomplishments as a pioneering, African American woman in the white, male-dominated field of journalism.

former Washington Bureau Chief of the Detroit News - Jacqueline Thomas

“Alone Atop the Hill is a poignant and revealing account of Alice Dunnigan’s life from her childhood in rural poverty to her adulthood in education and journalism. The narrative casts valuable light on the politics of race prior to the emergence of the civil rights movement. From start to finish I was drawn into Dunnigan’s stories, both personal and political.”—Eric Arnesen, professor of history, George Washington University

“Thanks to Carol Booker for bringing to light this marvelously documented life of Alice Dunnigan, who shattered racial and gender barriers as chief of the Associated Negro Press Bureau in Washington. In straightforward prose, Dunnigan gives the reader an unflinching look at how she persevered and how the Negro press kept civil rights before the public through the forties and fifties, preparing the way for when white America began to wake up. This is an honest history of the black experience from a woman whose first-person encounters with Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, too, lift the curtain and inform our understanding of how race played out then at the highest levels of government.”—Eleanor Clift, Daily Beast correspondent and McLaughlin Group panelist

"This poignant, engaging true story beautifully supplements Dunnigan's 2013 induction in the National Association of Black Journalist's Hall of Fame. It is highly recommended for scholars and general readers interested in the history of journalism, especially the black press, women in journalism, and the national press corps." —Library Journal

"Dunnigan’s indelible self-portrait affirms that while the media landscape has changed, along with some social attitudes and practices, discrimination is far from vanquished, and we still need dedicated and brave journalists to serve as clarion investigators, witnesses, and voices of conscience." —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

“In Alone Atop the Hill, editor Carol McCabe Booker brings Dunnigan’s story to light. . . . Thanks to [the author], we can now read this remarkable account of a woman who rose from humble roots to become a respected civil rights journalist with unprecedented access to the corridors of power.”—Karen Lyon, Hill Rag Magazine

“This revised edition of Alice Dunnigan’s story deservedly elevates her to the pantheon of African American and female pioneers of American history. . . . Extensive footnotes place Dunnigan’s achievements in historical context and highlight just how remarkable some of them were, not just for a woman, not just for an African American, but for any journalist. . . . Alone Atop the Hill gives deserved recognition to a principled and hardworking reporter whose array of singular accomplishments makes her worthy of further scholarship and public attention.”—Rachel Jagareski, Foreword Reviews

“Booker has done a wonderful job of bringing [the autobiography] back into print and her editor’s notes are terrific.”—James McGrath Morris, Eye on the Struggle Blog

“[This] book[-] provide[s] a fascinating timeline of history to enlighten a generation that takes it for granted that a black woman can be the most powerful media personality in the United States. . . . The editor[-] tell[s] the very specific stories reasonably well. . . . [Booker] machetes Dunnigan’s 1974 self-published book down to the adventure-filled bone. . . . [The] work[-] [is] a fantastic prologue for study of black-oriented journalistic work in Washington, D.C. . . . But perhaps the most important audience for [Alone Atop the Hill] is young black women who want, as their employment, the ability to question high authority—those who are not afraid to step into the spotlight and fight for inclusion in Washington’s boys club on their own terms as independent African Americans.”—Todd Steven Burroughs, The Root

From the Publisher

02/01/2015
Editor McCabe Booker (Shocking the Conscience) succeeds marvelously in revealing the voice and spirit of the groundbreaking mid-20th-century journalist Dunnigan (1906–83). This significantly trimmed version of the author's original 600-plus page autobiography, which she self-published in 1974, smartly splits its focus between Dunnigan's early years as a daughter, student, wife, and teacher in rural Kentucky and her hard-won second career triumphs as a writer, political reporter, and civil rights-conscious journalist. Particular highlights include Dunnigan's straightforward-yet-vivid recollections of family and friends during times of prewar poverty, and the relentless nature of her fight to gain credibility as an accredited White House reporter in the 1940s and 1950s. Readers who begin unfamiliar with Dunnigan's struggles and accomplishments will be utterly convinced of them by the book's end—although they may wonder at her story's slightly abrupt and unsatisfying ending, the result of some tough-but-fair editing choices by Booker. VERDICT This poignant, engaging true story beautifully supplements Dunnigan's 2013 induction in the National Association of Black Journalist's Hall of Fame. It is highly recommended for scholars and general readers interested in the history of journalism, especially the black press, women in journalism, and the national press corps.—Robin Chin Roemer, Univ. of Washington Lib., Seattle

Library Journal