Raymond H. Boone

2003 Honoree

Few journalists in Richmond, Virginia, make you stand up and take notice like Raymond H. Boone. His newspaper, editorials and lifework are often discussed in offices, homes and coffee shops throughout the Richmond metropolitan area.

Mr. Boone is the founder, editor and publisher of the Richmond Free Press, a premier African-American newspaper. He is also the founder, president and CEO of Paradigm Communications, Inc.

A native of Suffolk, Virginia, Mr. Boone earned a bachelor's degree from Boston University and a master's degree from Howard University. An early example of Mr. Boone's commitment to the Black press was his stint at the Washington Afro-American, for which he served as a White House reporter.

He returned to his native Virginia in 1965 to become editor of the Richmond Afro-American. Under Mr. Boone's leadership for 15 years, the Richmond Afro-American won numerous awards for journalistic excellence and crusades against racial injustice. Time magazine once credited him for bringing "sophistication and verve" to the Richmond Afro-American.

Mr. Boone joined the Howard University faculty in 1981, where he taught journalism for nearly nine years before establishing Paradigm Communications, Inc. in 1991.

Whether reporting from Cuba, Germany, Israel, Russia or downtown Richmond, Mr. Boone has courageously worked to advance human rights and to make Richmond and Virginia better places to live for all of its citizens, particularly those less fortunate. Black Enterprise magazine once hailed his brand of journalism as a model for the survival of black newspapers in America.

Mr. Boone has received three first-place editorial writing awards from the National Newspapers Publishers Association (NNPA). In 1996, the NNPA presented him and the Free Press its first-place Community Service Award in recognition of the newspaper's economic justice campaign.

In recognition of his "exceptional achievement," the journalism veteran was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame in 2000. Two years later, the United Negro College Fund presented Mr. Boone its Flame Bearer for Education Award.

The devoted human rights leader and journalist challenges America's young leaders to remember that "performing with excellence is one of the most powerful weapons against inequities."