Before the Byline: A Journalist’s Roots
By Don Wycliff
In this deeply personal memoir, Don Wycliff reflects on the unlikely path that carried him from a segregated childhood in East Texas to the editorial boards of some of America’s most influential newspapers. Born in 1946 to devout Black Catholic parents who instilled in him resilience, faith, and ambition, Wycliff was part of a generation that came of age during the Civil Rights Movement and the nation’s slow march toward equality.
The book traces his journey through transformative moments: winning a scholarship to the University of Notre Dame, living through the assassination of Fred Hampton and the Black Panther raid in Chicago, and discovering the power of journalism to reveal truth and hold power accountable. More than a chronicle of a journalist’s life, Before the Byline is a meditation on family, faith, race, and democracy. It explores how one man’s roots—in community, in church, and in history—nurtured a calling to tell stories that matter and to fight for a more inclusive America.
About Don Wycliff
Don Wycliff is a journalist, editor, and teacher whose career spanned more than four decades in American journalism. Born into a family of black strivers immediately after World War II, he and his family moved when he was seven to Ashland, Kentucky. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1969 and began graduate study at the University of Chicago as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Inspired by coverage of the 1969 Black Panther Party raid in Chicago, he chose journalism as his path.
Wycliff started as a reporter at the Houston Post and later returned to Chicago as a staffer at the venerable Chicago Daily News. He served two stints at The New York Times, the first as an editor in the Week in Review section and the second, from 1985 to 1990, as a member of the editorial board, writing about religion, race, education, and public policy. In 1990, he moved to the Chicago Tribune as editorial page editor, guiding the paper to one Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing and to Pulitzer finalist status for another. From 2000 to 2006, he served as the Tribune’s public editor, writing a widely read column and engaging readers directly about the newspaper’s work.
Beyond journalism, Wycliff has served on advisory councils at Notre Dame and with the national associations of minority media executives and black journalists. He twice was a Pulitzer Prize juror in the 1990s. He co-edited Black Domers: African-American Students at Notre Dame in Their Own Words, and taught at Loyola University Chicago as Distinguished Journalist in Residence.
He has two grown sons, Matthew and Grant. He and his wife, Pamela, live in South Bend, Indiana, and are active in their community and church life.