Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones is an investigative journalist covering civil rights, racial inequality, and the enduring legacy of American slavery. She is best known for creating The 1619 Project, a landmark initiative by The New York Times that reframed American history around the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619. The project won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2020 and sparked a national conversation about how we teach history. Before The 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones spent years covering school segregation, housing discrimination, and voting rights with deeply reported long-form journalism. She is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism and Democracy. Her work has won a MacArthur Fellowship ("Genius Grant"), the George Polk Award, and the National Magazine Award.