Donald M. Wilson Fellowship

In 2011, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights established the Donald M. Wilson Fellowship program to provide a position at the RFK Center to one outstanding recent graduate student each year. Donald Wilson and his family recognized the need for greater support for recent graduates who wish to devote their professional lives to public service and generously endowed the Fellowship program at the RFK Center.

The fellowship carries the name of the prominent magazine journalist who developed a close friendship with Robert Kennedy during John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. A LIFE magazine correspondent for twelve years, Donald Wilson covered the Korean and Viet Nam wars for the magazine and afterward led LIFE’s Washington, D.C., bureau, where he met Robert Kennedy.

Following the campaign, Donald Wilson was appointed deputy director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) and served under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1989, he retired as Corporate Vice President-Public Affairs at Time Inc. In 1991, with James L. Greenfield, a former assistant managing editor at The New York Times, he founded the Independent Journalism Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to promoting free and independent media in Eastern and Central Europe and Southeast Asia.