UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the "1619 Project" and staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, will give a virtual talk on Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. Her talk, titled “1619 and the Legacy that Built a Nation,” is free and open to the public. Pre-registration for the event is required.
Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant; a Peabody Award; two George Polk Awards; and the National Magazine Award three times. Hannah-Jones also 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. She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she is founding the Center for Journalism and Democracy.
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. She holds a master of arts in mass communication from the University of North Carolina and earned her bachelor's degree in history and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame. Hannah-Jones has written extensively about school resegregation across the country and chronicled the decades-long failure of the federal government to enforce the landmark 1968 Fair Housing Act.
This virtual event is funded by the University Park Student Initiated Fee, co-sponsored by Lutheran Student Community, Presbyterian Student Fellowship, Wesley Student Foundation, the Penn State Center for Spiritual and Ethical Development, and Bellisario College of Communications.