William Dilday Jr., the first Black TV station manager and owner, died at 85 following complications from a recent fall. Dilday’s daughter, Erika, told the New York Times the groundbreaking media man died in the hospital on July 27 after he had problems recovering from a fall.
According to the NYT, Dilday, a Boston native, graduated from Boston University in 1960. He then served two years in the Army before working in IBM’s personnel department. He got his first big break in 1969 when he was appointed the director of personnel at WHDH, a news outlet in Boston.
Three years later, Dilday moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where he became the leader of the state’s largest station WLBT after eight years of litigation from the United Church of Christ because of the station’s limited coverage of the Civil Rights Movement. Dilday immediately began to increase the number of Black employees at the station. Dilday also helmed a series that eventually won a Peabody Award in 1976, Probe, which investigated political corruption in Mississippi.
Three years before the Peabody Award, Dilday co-founded the National Association of Black Journalists and became an investor in a TV station in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. As a result of this venture, Dilday became the first Black person to own a commercial TV station in the United States. From 1978 to 1979, Dilday served as the president of the Jackson Urban League, now the Mississippi Urban League, a civil rights and service organization in Jackson, Mississippi.
He also worked as a station manager at CBS affiliate WJTV from 1985 until his retirement in 2000. Dilday also advised politicians like Bennie Thompson, who was the chair of the committee handling the investigation of the Jan. 6 riot of 2021.
Thompson gave the NYT a statement explaining what Dilday meant to the media landscape writ large: “William Dilday was an inspirational leader for the media, and an important figure in Jackson, and the wider news media.”
Thompson continued: “His tireless work made a lasting impact on the media.” Dilday is survived by his wife, Maxine; his daughter, Erika; son Scott Sparrow; and four grandchildren.