Steve Gilliard, Black Blogger, Dead at Age 42

Today's New York Times carried the obituary of Steve Gilliard, a liberal Black blogger based in New York City who published The News Blog, and was one of the few bloggers to make a living from the advertising revenue and reader donations generated by his blog. Gilliard was the first guest blogger at Dailykos.com when it had a mere 4000 readers a day, now the site has 100 times that. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga published his eulogy of "Gilly" (as he was called by friends) on his blog on Saturday night, hours after being informed of Gilliard's passing.

As many others have mentioned before, there are not that many African American bloggers period, and to find another Black, fiercely progressive, very intelligent voice in the blogosphere was quite an exciting moment for me. (Rod 2.0, Republic of T, Keith Boykin, Pam's House Blend, Bejata and Oliver Willis are others that come to mind immediately.) His blog was one of the first additions to the "Essential" section of The Mad Professah Lectures blogroll. Many of his readers didn't even know he was black.

He will be missed.