Speaker

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Lecture date

February 4th, 2025

Time

7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Title

The 1619 Project

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and the Pulitzer Prize–winning creator of The 1619 Project, an ongoing initiative that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. The book version of The 1619 Project as well as The 1619 Project children’s book, Born on the Water, were instant number one New York Times bestsellers. The 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries on Hulu.

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. She serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and in 2022 she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. 

Hannah-Jones holds a master of arts in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her bachelor of arts in history and African American studies from the University of Notre Dame.