Background
Hilliard was born in Chicago, but lived in Arkansas until age 8, then moving to Portland, Oregon.
Hilliard was born in Chicago, but lived in Arkansas until age 8, then moving to Portland, Oregon.
He graduated from Benson Polytechnic High School, where he had worked on the school newspaper, and spent a year in the United States. Navy after being drafted. Hilliard studied journalism at Vanport College (now Portland State University) and then the University of Oregon, before transferring in 1950 to Pacific University, in Forest Grove, from which he graduated in 1952 with a degree in journalism.
He was editor of The Oregonian, the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, from 1987 to 1994 and was that newspaper"s first African-American editors He was also president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1993-1994. As a youth, he applied for a job as a newspaper delivery boy for The Oregonian, but his application was rejected out of concerns that having a black delivery boy would not be acceptable to the paper"s white subscribers.
While at Pacific, he was managing editor of the university"s then-weekly newspaper, The Pacific Index, starting in December 1950, and was the paper"s elected editor for the 1951-1952 school year.
Hilliard worked at The Oregonian from 1952 to 1994, starting as a copy boy, and then rising to clerk, sports reporter, religion and general assignment reporter, and in 1965 assistant city editors In 1971, he became city editor, and in 1982 was named executive editors
He oversaw the merging of the paper with the Oregon Journal in 1982. In 1987, Hilliard was named editor of The Oregonian, with "full control over the newspaper"s news and editorial departments." He was the newspaper"s first African-American editors
He introduced zoned suburban coverage and expanded coverage of minorities issues, as well as increasing the hiring of minorities by the paper.
Hilliard served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) in 1993-1994. He remained editor of The Oregonian until retiring in 1994, although during the last year of his tenure with the paper he gave his designated successor, executive editor Sandra M. Rowe, effective control of the editor"s duties and focused his attention on the ASNE duties. In 1998, Hilliard was given the Oregon Newspaper Hall of Fame Award by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.
In 2002, when it was discovered that United States of America Today reporter Jack Kelley had fabricated some of his stories, United States of America Today turned to Hilliard, along with veteran editors John Seigenthaler Senior and Bill Kovach, to monitor the investigation.
