| Summary: | Publisher Dorothy Leavell was born on October 23, 1944 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She graduated as Merrill High School's valedictorian in 1962. After relocating to Chicago, Leavell attended Roosevelt University. Her first husband, Balm L. Leavell, Jr. founded the Crusader newspaper in Chicago in 1940 and later published a corresponding newspaper in Gary, Indiana. After her husband's death in 1968, Leavell acted as the publisher and editor of the Crusader. She was chairperson of Amalgamated Publishers which sold national advertising for more than 200 African American papers. She was active in the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a black newspaper trade organization, for more than twenty-five years. Leavell received many awards for her contributions to the publishing industry and her community including the Mary McLeod Bethune Award. She married her second husband, John Smith, and was active in Holy Name of Mary Church in Chicago's Morgan Park community.
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