William Hilliard was a journalist and newspaper editor who became the first Black editor in chief of The Oregonian. William was born in Chicago in 1927. When he was nine, the family moved to Oregon after his mother and step father both accepted jobs as domestic laborers for a White family in The Dalles. Soon after, the family moved to Portland. In 1938, 11 year old William applied for a job as a newspaper delivery boy for The Oregonian, the state’s largest daily newspaper. Recalling the story many years later, William stated that he was turned down for the job because the paper’s manager believed White subscribers would not be comfortable with a Black paperboy coming near their homes.
William graduated from Benson Polytechnic High School and then attended Vanport College. He enrolled at the University of Oregon in the hopes of becoming a journalist, but left after one of his professors told him there was no place for Black people in the newspaper business. William transferred to Pacific University in Forest Grove, where he earned a degree in journalism in 1952.
Fresh from graduation, 25 year old William started his own newspaper called the Portland Challenger. The Challenger was created to address issues that affected Portland’s Black community. William needed additional work, however, and took the best newspaper job he could get: copy boy at The Oregonian. In that role, his boss was a high school student, and his job consisted mostly of running errands. Nonetheless, William became the paper’s first Black newsroom employee.
After a few years at The Oregonian, William was promoted to the sports desk. While the promotion was welcomed, he rarely got to cover live events. His first out-of-office assignment was a Harlem Globetrotters game. Finally, in 1965, after covering sports, religion and general reporting assignments, William was named as an assistant city editor. He continued to rise through the ranks at the paper, to city editor, and then executive editor. In 1986, he was named The Oregonian’s editor in chief, becoming the first Black editor of a major daily newspaper in the West.
During his tenure, The Oregonian grew in its readership and added its first foreign correspondents. William oversaw a hiring boom that tripled the paper’s non-White staff, and he lectured around the country about the importance of having a diverse news team. In 1992, he instituted a policy to ban the publication of racist sports team names—the first such action by any mainstream news organization in America. In 1993, William was named the President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
William Hilliard retired from The Oregonian in 1994, after 42 years with the paper. He left behind a legacy as a civic and Black community leader, and as a landmark figure in Oregon journalism history. He passed away in Portland in 2019.