Leon Dash

Leon Dash
Born (1944-03-16) March 16, 1944 (age 82)
New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.
EducationHoward University
Occupationjournalist
Notable creditPulitzer Prize-winner

Leon Dash (born March 16, 1944, in New Bedford, Massachusetts) is a professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A former reporter for the Washington Post, he is the author of Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, which grew out of the eight-part Washington Post series for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

Biography

Early life and education

Dash was born about 1944 and grew up in Harlem and the Bronx. He attended Howard University, studying history. In 1969-1970, he served as a Peace Corps high school teacher in Kenya.

Journalism career

Dash joined the Washington Post in 1965, working as a member of the special projects unit. He later worked the state department, as part of the investigative desk, and as the West Africa Bureau Chief.

In 1972, Dash was one of 7 black reporters dubbed the "Metro Seven" who filed a discrimination complaint against The Washington Post with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) on March 23, 1972. It was he first action against a major metropolitan American newspaper.

Dash spent 10 weeks with rebel forces in Angola in 1973 and was named by the Overseas Press Club of America as the 1974 winner of the George Polk Memorial Award “for best reporting from abroad, in any medium, requiring exceptional courage and enterprise.”

External videos
video icon Booknotes interview with Dash on Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, November 10, 1996, C-SPAN

From 1988 and 1992, Dash embedded himself with the Cunningham family in Washington DC. The result was Rosa Lee, an eight-part series for the Washington Post published in September 1994, about one woman and her family's struggle to escape the urban underclass poverty in the city's projects. The eight-part series won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1995. The series also and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. The series became the basis for Dash's 1996 book, Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America. The series was later chosen as one of the best 100 pieces in 20th-century American Journalism by New York University's journalism department.

Dash lived in the inner city of Washington, D.C. for a year researching teenage pregnancy among black youths for a six-part series in the Post in 1986. The series later became a book, When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis of Teenage Childbearing. The book challenges common beliefs that inadequate birth control and lack of sex education classes are the causes of teenage pregnancy. Instead, Dash's findings were "that some urban teens view motherhood as an achievement in a life devoid of other accomplishments and as an indication they had reached adulthood."

Leon retired in 2025, with his colleague throwing a retirement party on May 14, 2025.

Academic career

In 1998, Dash joined the University of Illinois as a professor of journalism, as well as Afro-American Studies. In 2000,[citation needed] he was named the Swanlund Chair, the highest endowed title bestowed upon faculty at the University of Illinois.

Three years later, he was made a permanent faculty member in the University's Center for Advanced Study. Dash served as director of the center from 2009 to 2014.

Critical reception

Of his book Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, the Detroit Free Press called it a "stark, sobering chronicle of an impoverished, black Washington DC family" and said while "Dash's chronicle sometimes lacks the flow of a neatly tied tale, his sparse, clean writing is easy to read. Particularly touching are the scenes in which hope comes at the most unexpected times".

Of his book When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis of Teenage Childbearing, the Baltimore Sun said "The problem of teenage pregnancy and unwed motherhood is so complex [...] that reading this book is almost suffocatingly depressing. [...] Dash takes us disconcertingly close to these families and lets them answer in their own voices. Unfortunately, Dash too often leaves the compelling stories of his adopted neighbours [...] to journey downtown to the shining, glamour world of the Post".

Of his series on teenage pregnancy, the Press of Atlantic City said "As in his other reports, Dash did not offer possible solutions to the problems he investigates. While it might infuriate some readers, [...] that's not Dash's style."

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Eversley, Melanie (Oct 9, 1996). "Death Waltz in the City". Detroit Free Press. pp. 3F. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 3 Feinsilber, Mike (2 October 1994). "Rosa Lee's Washington: America's Capital Confronts One of its Citizens and Many of its Crisis". Valley News. West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Associated Press. pp. A6. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cronin, Steven V. (Feb 19, 1998). "Washington Post Journalist has his Own Way of Reporting". Lifestyle. Press of Atlantic City. pp. B1, B3. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 3 "Pulitzer Prize Winner Leon Dash to Speak at Rowan". Press of Atlantic City. Feb 13, 1998. p. 4. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Notable former Peace Corps Volunteers in Education". Peace Corps. 2000. Archived from the original on 2007-08-09. Retrieved 2007-07-27.
  6. 1 2 3 "Dash Brings Needed Experience". The Daily Illini. January 22, 1998. p. 14. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 "Leon Dash Gest Press Citation". The Courier News. Blytheville, Arkansas. Associated Press. Apr 15, 1974. p. 4. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "The Top 100 Works of Journalism of the Century". NYU Journalism. Retrieved 2026-11-06. 90. Leon Dash. "Rosa Lee's Story" in the Washington Post. 1994
  9. 1 2 3 4 Hall III, Wiley A. (Feb 5, 1989). "Disturbing Look at Teen Pregnancy". The Fresno Bee. Baltimore Sun. pp. F14. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Bryant, Lindsay M. (Nov 20, 2003). "Talk Give Insight on Teen Pregnancy". The Daily Illini. pp. A-3. Retrieved 7 November 2026 – via newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Leon Dash and Lucian Perkins | The Pulitzer Prizes". www.pulitzer.org. Retrieved 2026-11-05.