Professor Burnis R. Morris earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Mississippi in 1973 and an M.P.A. in Public Administration from the University of Dayton in 1977. Professor Burnis R. Morris is one of several people recently honored with a photo and banner in downtown Huntington. Morris joined the Marshall University Journalism faculty in 2003 as the Carter G. Woodson Professor. He became a Distinguished Drinko Fellow in 2011 and was named the Senior Faculty Distinguished Artists and Scholars Award winner and a West Virginia History Hero in 2016. He was named in the first group of John Marshall Summer Scholars in 2018 and in 2020 was recognized as a “National Trailblazer of Diversity” by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Morris’s work has been supported by five major grants from the West Virginia Humanities Council for Black History institutes and three from Knight Foundation to create a national training program for journalists covering nonprofit organizations. In 2016, Morris began directing The Dr. Carter G. Woodson Lyceum, which he co-founded with Dr. Alan Gould. He is the author of four books, including Carter G. Woodson: History, the Black Press, and Public Relations (2017); an essay, “Dr. Carter G. Woodson: A Century of Making Black Lives Matter,” in a public history volume called Radical Roots: Public History and Social Justice (2021); an essay, “Carter G. Woodson: The Early Years, 1875-1903”; and most recently an article, “A Woodson Legacy: The Black Press Partnership,” at the invitation of Woodson’s scholarly Journal of African American History (2023). Before academe, Professor Morris served in a variety of capacities as an employee at several newspapers owned by Cox Enterprises, including as a reporter, business editor, night city editor, assistant business manager and marketing services director in Dayton, Atlanta, Austin, and West Palm Beach – the latter two as a member of the newspapers’ management teams. He began his career as a New York Times intern and was the first Black student at the University of Mississippi named to Who’s Who.
