Rebuilding Democracy Lecture Series: Nikole Hannah-Jones, professor and editor of "The 1619 Project"

This event, conducted on Zoom, will feature a discussion between Hannah-Jones, Dean Robert Brinkmann and Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Chief diversity officer Vernese Edgehill-Walden on a range of topics including equity in American democracy, the long-term consequences of slavery and segregation, the state of American history education, and the power of journalism to bring change in society. A moderated question and answer session will follow the discussion. 

This event is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and their resource centers, College of Visual and Performing Arts, College of Law, Center for Black Studies, Social Justice Education and the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center.

Named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, Hannah-Jones serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she is founding the Center for Journalism & Democracy.  She also writes for The New York Times Magazine.

Hannah-Jones has spent years chronicling the way official policy has created—and maintains—racial segregation in housing and schools. Her reporting earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, a Peabody Award and two George Polk Awards. She is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award.

She is editor of ‘The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story,’ which includes essays exploring the legacy of slavery in present-day America, as well as poems and works of fiction illuminating key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for the project’s opening essay. In addition to being an instant #1 New York Times bestseller, it was selected as one of Amazon’s best history books of the year, and soon it will be adapted into a graphic novel and four publications for young readers.

She earned the John Chancellor Award for Distinguished Journalism and was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists and the Newswomen’s Club of New York. In 2020, she was inducted into the Society of American Historians and in 2021 she was named a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. In 2016, Hannah-Jones co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of reporters and editors of color. Hannah-Jones is also the founder of the 1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.