Pulitzer Prize winner to speak at GRCC’s Diversity Lecture Series

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of The 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, will offer a keynote discussion for the 27th annual Diversity Lecture Series at Grand Rapids Community College.

The event is planned for 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 31, 2022, will be conducted virtually and will not be recorded. Registration is available at tinyurl.com/GRCCequity.

"The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has a storied history of inviting speakers who compel us to think beyond our comfort,” says Dr. B. Afeni McNeely Cobham, GRCC’s chief equity and inclusion officer. “We are fortunate to continue this tradition with a preeminent scholar-practitioner."

Award-winning reporting 

The 1619 Project is a historical analysis published in The New York Times magazine about how slavery shaped American political, social, and economic institutions. 

Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice. 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 received 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.

Hannah-Jones in 2020 was inducted into the Society of American Historians, and in 2021 she was named a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She was honored with the NAACP Social Justice Award this year.

Professor Hannah-Jones is the Knight Chair in 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 recently launched the 1619 Freedom School in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.