Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, where she created “The 1619 Project,” an initiative that “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.” She is the author of two New York Times bestsellers: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, a book adaptation of the project, and The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, its children’s edition. The project has since expanded into an Emmy-winning docuseries on Hulu and a Spotify podcast.

Hannah-Jones has earned nearly every major award in journalism, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards, three National Magazine Awards, the John Chancellor Award for Distinguished Journalism, and a 2024 Primetime Emmy. She has been named Journalist of the Year by both the National Association of Black Journalists and the Newswomen’s Club of New York and inducted into the Society of American Historians, the North Carolina Media Hall of Fame, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Hannah-Jones is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy and created an Investigative Journalism Consortium with nine historically Black colleges and universities. She also co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting at Morehouse College. In 2022, Hannah-Jones launched the 1619 Freedom School, a free after-school literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.