Emerson Trustee’s Oral History Included in Library of Congress

Emerson College Trustee Douglas Holloway ’76 made history. Now he’s made it into the Library of Congress.

Holloway, a former cable television executive for USA Networks, NBC, and ION Media Networks, granted an interview in 2013 to The HistoryMakers, an African American oral history video collection. The HistoryMakers donated its collection to the Library of Congress in 2014, and has recently added Holloway’s interview.

“I am very humbled by this incredible honor,” Holloway said. “This is one of the most significant honors I have been recognized for in my career. I hope it helps to be a beacon for those who follow in my footsteps.”

Holloway, a native of Pittsburgh, graduated from Emerson with a degree in mass communications and television production, and then went on to earn an MBA from Columbia University, according to his HistoryMakers bio.

He started his career in marketing at General Foods (later Kraft Foods), before moving to CBS to work in financial planning in 1980. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Holloway worked his way up at USA Networks, eventually becoming president of the company’s affiliate relations department. In 2004, when NBC purchased USA, Holloway was made president of cable investments and put in charge of AETN, Shop NBC, Peacock Productions, Weather Plus, and National Geographic International, HistoryMakers said.

He consulted for American Express and America One/One World Sports from 2009 to 2011, when he became president of multichannel distribution at ION Media Networks.

He has racked up numerous industry and alumni awards, including a 2000 Vanguard Award for Marketing from the National Cable Television Association; a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association for Multiethnicity in Communications in 2005; Columbia University’s Alumni Heritage Award in 2008; and Emerson’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004. In 2007, he was named the seventh most powerful black professional in Hollywood by Black Enterprise, and Crain included him in its Top 40 Executives Under 40 list in 1997.

The HistoryMakers Archive includes thousands of hours of interviews that together chronicle African American life, culture, achievements, and struggles.

“The HistoryMakers archive provides invaluable first-person accounts of both well-known and unsung African Americans, detailing their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments—often in the face of adversity,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington in a 2014 statement announcing the acquisition. “This culturally important collection is a rich and diverse resource for scholars, teachers, students, and documentarians seeking a more complete record of our nation’s history and its people.”

The videos in the collection are grouped according to 15 subject areas, including ScienceMakers; ArtMakers; CivicMakers; LawMakers; and Holloway’s category, MediaMakers. Other notable African Americans interviewed for the project include poet Maya Angelou, activist Angela Davis, and then-state Senator Barack Obama.