Alice Allison Dunnigan, who died in 1983, was a journalistic trailblazer. Born to working-class parents in rural Kentucky in 1906, she went on to become the first African-American woman correspondent to officially report from the White House.
Over the course of her long career, she had to fight against brutal racism, institutional sexism and poverty – but she never wavered in her commitment to covering stories about civil rights and race issues.
Now, Dunnigan is set to be honoured with a bronze statue at the Newseum, a museum in Washington DC that promotes free expression and the First Amendment to the US Constitution (which protects rights including freedom of speech and the freedom of the press).
