Dawn M. Porter

Filmmaker Dawn Porter was born on June 11, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York, New York to Donna Liggins and David Peter Porter. She attended Bronx High School of Science before earning her B.A. degree in political science from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania in 1988. In 1993, Porter earned her J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C.

That same year, Porter began her career as an attorney with Baker & Hostetler LLP in Washington D.C. After five years with the firm, she was hired by ABC Television in New York, New York, where she worked as an attorney until 2000. Then, she joined ABC News as the director of standards and practices, and she worked with the company until 2005. Porter was hired as the vice president of the Arts & Entertainment Network (A&E) that same year. In 2018, Porter joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism as a professor and head of the documentary program.

Porter founded her production company, Trilogy Films, in 2007. She went on to direct and produce her first film, Gideon’s Army, in 2013. She produced and directed her second project, Spies of Mississippi, which premiered on PBS in 2014. Porter’s 2016 film entitled Trapped, about abortion clinics in the South, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Her four-part series Bobby Kennedy for President was released on Netflix in 2018, and the documentary film John Lewis: Good Trouble was released in 2020. That same year, Porter produced and directed The Way I See It and Vernon Jordan: Make It Plain. Her documentary film, Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer was released by National Geographic in 2021. Porter produced and directed the miniseries Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court in 2023, which was released on Showtime. Then, her Hulu Original film, The Lady Bird Diaries, premiered in 2023. In 2024, Porter directed and produced three films and series: The Sing Sing Chronicles, Luther: Never Too Much, and Power of the Dream.

Porter has served as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Directors Guild of America. Throughout her career, Porter has received numerous awards and honors including a 2014 Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize for her film Gideon’s Army. In 2021, John Lewis: Good Trouble won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary Film. Porter was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities in 2024 by former President Joe Biden. Her film Luther: Never Too Much was the recipient of two NAACP Image Awards in 2025: Outstanding Documentary Film and Outstanding Directing in a Documentary.

Porter resides in New York, New York.

Dawn Porter was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on May 16, 2025.