The Payne-Dunnigan House: Alice Allison Dunnigan's Kentucky Home Base

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Alice Allison Dunnigan was a noted African American journalist and author — and the first African American woman to receive credentials to attend White House news briefings and report on the president. The Payne-Dunnigan House in her hometown of Russellville, Kentucky, is where she stayed on her visits home.

From teacher to Washington correspondent

Dunnigan was born and raised in Russellville. After high school she trained as a teacher at the Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute (now Kentucky State University) and taught in local schools for several years. She had been writing since childhood; as a teacher she wrote educational materials for her students and published articles in the Louisville Defender and other local papers.

During World War II she moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the U.S. Department of Labor. After the war she also began writing for the Associated Negro Press (ANP), and in 1947 she took charge of its Washington office, which she led for 14 years.

In that role she broke barrier after barrier. She was the first African American woman credentialed to report on:

the White House
Congress
the State Department
the Supreme Court

She was also the first to join a presidential tour. As a reporter, she pressed government officials with tough questions on issues affecting African Americans.

Dunnigan left the ANP in the early 1960s. She also worked on Lyndon B. Johnson's 1960 campaign for the presidential nomination and held positions in the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

The house

The house was built in the 1940s for Ruby Payne, Dunnigan's sister-in-law, who worked as a domestic servant. From 1942 until her death in 1983, Dunnigan stayed there whenever she came back to Russellville.

In 2023 the Payne-Dunnigan House joined the African American Civil Rights Network. Created by the African American Civil Rights Act of 2017 and coordinated by the National Park Service, the network honors the civil rights movement and the sacrifices of those who fought discrimination and segregation, telling its stories through public and private properties, facilities and programs.