Editor and Publisher The Crusader Newspaper Group
Chairman Emeritus, National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA)
Dorothy R. Leavell was born on October 23, 1944, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Sallie Topps and Blane Bonder. A product of Pine Bluff Public Schools (Merrill High), she graduated valedictorian of her class in 1962 and did further studies at Roosevelt University.
A Black Press icon, she began her career at the Chicago Crusader Newspaper. In 1968, she became publisher of the Crusader after the death of her first husband, Balm L. Leavell, Jr. In 1995, she became the second female President of the NNPA Foundation, a post she held until 1999. She also served as elected Chairman of NNPA Foundation from 2017 to 2019.
Dorothy Leavell raised the international stature of NNPA by leading a 20-member delegation to Nigeria to investigate their political crisis. As Chairman of the NNPA Foundation, she headed a committee to pardon the Wilmington Ten. The Governor of North Carolina granted the pardon in 2013. In January 2021, she became Treasurer of the Illinois Press Association and in January 2022, she became vice-chair.
Dorothy Leavell is the recipient of many awards, most recently, the Ida B. Wells Legacy Award, the Chicago Urban League’s Lester H. McKeever Jr. Individual Service Award. She is an inductee of the Broadcaster Print Media and National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. Leavell is a member of Holy Name of Mary Church, the wife of John Smith, and the mother of two adult children.