In 1994, Leon Dash, while still at the Washington Post, wrote a Pulitzer winning series of articles about a woman named Rosa Lee Cunningham.

Cunningham was one of the many urban poor living in the housing projects of Washington DC. The story of her family helped show the effects of drug abuse on the urban poor and the cycle of despair people on public assistance sometimes find themselves in.

In addition to the newspaper articles Dash wrote a book, and Frontline did a documentary on Rosa Lee's life.

Rosa Lee passed away on July 8, 1995.