User:Rhododendrites/Dorothy Leavell

Dorothy Leavell is a newspaper publisher and editor.

Early life
Dorothy Leavell was born Dorothy Gonder on October 23, 1944, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her parents were Sallie and Blane Gonder. She attended Merrill High School in Pine Bluff, where she graduated as valedictorian. She majored in psychiatric social work at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Career
Leavell joined The Chicago Crusader as its office manager in 1961. The Crusader is an African-American newspaper founded in 1940 by Balm Leavell, who also started the Gary Crusader in 1961. Not long after Gonder started at the paper, they were married. She became the newspaper's business manager in 1964, and upon her husband's death in 1968, she took charge of the company, becoming both publisher and editor of the Chicago Crusader and the Gary Crusader.

She has led the two Crusader papers since 1968, traveling between Chicago and Gary. During that time, she had the papers purchase the buildings they were housed in, modernized their technological capabilities, stabilized their finances, and increased circulation.

She has held positions at the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an association of African-American newspaper publishers in the United States, since 1976, and has been its chair since 1995.

In She took over Chicago's alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader in 2018. Earlier that year, the Reader was the subject of controversy for decisions made by its executive editor on the subject of race, culminating in a racist cover depicting J.B. Pritzker sitting on top of a lawn jockey while talking with Rod Blagojevich. It led to the executive editor's firing less than a month after he began. Leavell's company bought the paper and became its new publisher

liked the job they do in investigative reporting. and like the entertainment/arts listings. said someone approached her about buying it -- wasn't looking for something new. Sun Times, previous owner, was looking to sell. planned to make it more diverse, especially in its circulation (can't get it in many africna-american communities).

Dorothy Leavell has served in prominent roles in many African-American publishing organizations and was inducted into the National Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2016.

Elected chair of Amalgamated Publishers, Incorporated in April 2002. An African American-owned advertising placement firm that represents more than 200....

Personal life

Leavell had two children, Antonio and Genice, with Balm before he died in 1968.