William Dilday Jr., First Black U.S. TV Station Manager, Dead at 85

Dilday Jr.’s daughter confirmed that her father died in the hospital due to complications after a fall

William H. Dilday Jr., the first Black television station manager in the U.S., died on July 27 in Newton, Massachusetts. He was 85.

Dilday Jr.’s daughter, Erika Dilday, confirmed to The New York Times that her father died in the hospital due to complications after a fall.

After graduating with a degree in business administration from Boston University in 1960, the Boston native served in the Army for two years and then worked in the personnel department at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). In 1969, Dilday Jr. became the director of personnel at Boston news outlet WHDH, according to The Times.

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Per the publication, Dilday Jr. moved to Jackson, Mississippi, three years later to head the state’s largest station, WLBT, after he received a call from a nonprofit organization following eight years of litigation by the United Church of Christ against the station due to its limited coverage of the civil rights movement and the lives of Mississippi’s Black residents.

The Times reported that immediately after starting his new position, Dilday Jr. increased the number of Black employees at the station from 15 to 35 percent. One of the employees he hired, Dorothy Gibbs, created the integrated children’s program Our Playmates.

He also created a series that investigated political corruption in Mississippi titled Probe, which won a Peabody award in 1976, according to the outlet.

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Despite local and national civil rights groups’ protests, Dilday Jr. had someone from the station cover the white supremacist National States’ Rights Part. He told Kay Mills, author of Changing Channels: The Civil Rights Case that Transformed Television: “We got a lot of flak. But if it happened tomorrow, I’d do it again,” per The Times.

Even though WLBT received phone calls threatening violence when Dilday Jr. was hired and when he was on air reporting on political issues, he created a $500,000 profit off $3.7 million in revenue for the station in 1977, the outlet reported.

Dilday Jr. also co-founded the National Association of Black Journalists in 1973. That year, he became a buying investor of a TV station in St. Croix, which is part of the Virgin Islands. It became the first Black-owned commercial station in the U.S., according to The Times.

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He later served as the president of civil rights and service organization Jackson Urban League from 1978 to 1979. Dilday Jr. began working as station manager at WJTV, the CBS affiliate in Jackson, in 1985 until he retired in 2000, The Times reported.

He also advised politicians in the area, including Rep. Bennie Thompson, who was the House of Senate’s committee chair investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, per the outlet.

“William Dilday was an inspirational leader for the media, and an important figure in Jackson, Miss., and the wider news media,” Thompson said in a statement to The Times. “His tireless work made a lasting impact on the media.”

Dilday Jr. is survived by his wife Maxine Wiggins, daughter Erika, son Scott Sparrow and four grandchildren.

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