Alone atop the Hill

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.

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 *

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 *

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 *

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.

* 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.

* 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.

* Foreword Reviews *

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 *

[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 *

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 Week