By Megan Sayles,
AFRO Business Writer,
Report for America Corps Member,
msayles@afro.com
After serving the AFRO as editor for 10 years and managing editor for four years, Dorothy Boulware is stepping back from her role, leaving the reigns for Alexis Taylor, who currently serves as news editor.
According to Boulware, Taylor’s attention to detail is exactly what an editor needs to produce exceptional content across the media organization’s various platforms.
“Alexis has enough experience as a journalist and enough newness as a manager to be a great team leader in helping the AFRO hold its place as a Black Press star,” said Boulware. “She brings a type of reverence for history that makes her appreciate the archival treasure the AFRO adds to its news coverage and the ongoing story of Black people.”
In her new role, Boulware will continue participating in media training labs and manage special projects and publications for the news organization.
She admitted that she doesn’t think she will ever be finished with the AFRO. It’s been a part of her life since she was a young girl reading the newspaper at her grandmother’s dining room table. She promised to continue devising ways to best serve the Baltimore community, including finding local talent to fill the AFRO’s pages.
“I’ve worked with Reverend Dorothy Boulware, or “Rev” as she is affectionately known, for most of my ten years at the AFRO. Her calm and steady presence has kept me from the edge on several occasions,” said Lenora Howze, executive director of the AFRO. “She’s the epitome of ‘unflappable.’ Rev’s inspirational leadership has sparked creativity and ideation in all of us. Although on a limited basis and in a different capacity, I’m happy that she’ll still be on the team.”
Boulware first met Taylor in 2011, while the latter was an intern journalist for the newspaper. Boulware recalls how she once asked Taylor to quickly craft a story covering the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in September.
Boulware expected that the journalist would simply meet some of the Baltimoreans traveling to New York City for the protest, but the next time she checked in with Taylor, she had already become embedded with a group of activists and conducted in-person interviews with them– from Manhattan.
Boulware said she knew then that the AFRO had a true journalist at hand.
Taylor, a graduate of Morgan State University’s journalism program, honed her craft under award-winning Black Enterprise editor Frank Dexter Brown. It was in his class that Taylor fell in love with the Black Press and learned the demands of high-quality journalism.
“I didn’t know it then, but Frank Dexter Brown and Rev. Boulware were pouring wisdom and developing a skill set that would take me from Morgan State University to the White House,” said Taylor. “Their patience and dedication to training journalists the right way set me up for a career in media that has gone beyond what I could ask or think.”
As a writer, Taylor has covered critical topics for the Black community, including voting rights, police brutality and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from her work with the AFRO, Taylor has also reported on education for Word in Black, a first-of-its-kind newsroom collaboration between the country’s preeminent Black publishers.
“It’s important to have Black editors and journalists in the community, telling Black stories with all their beauty and flaws,” said Taylor. “I look forward to being a soldier in the Black Press army. I’m honored to be a part of the AFRO, a premier publication, which has recorded the progress of Black people since 1892. I am eager to learn and grow in this role, but more importantly– I’m looking to be of service to the communities and readers we serve.”
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