First black female White House reporter gets Newseum statue

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first black woman to be accredited to cover the White House now has a statue in the Newseum.

Alice Allison Dunnigan made history when she received White House press credentials in 1947 and became part of the White House traveling press corps covering President Harry Truman’s re-election campaign in 1948.

Dunnigan, as Washington bureau chief for the Associated Negro Press, would go on to cover Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy before taking a job in the Kennedy and then the Johnson administration. She died in 1983.

The life-size bronze statue of Dunnigan created by Kentucky sculptor Amanda Matthews was unveiled on Friday.

It will remain in the Newseum until December, when it will be moved to her home state of Kentucky.