The Washington Association of Black Journalists (WABJ) is proud to congratulate Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and The 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones and distinguished journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates on their faculty appointments at Howard University.
Howard University announced Tuesday that Hannah-Jones, the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2015 Journalist of the Year and the 2017 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” will begin her tenured role this summer as the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at its Cathy Hughes School of Communications.
Hannah-Jones will also found the Center for Journalism and Democracy to train and support aspiring journalists “in acquiring the investigative skills and historical and analytical expertise needed to cover the crisis our democracy is facing,” the university said.
This move comes after a tenure controversy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her alma mater. Hannah-Jones had challenged UNC’s board of trustees for denying the university’s journalism department’s recommendation for a tenured position. Less than a week after the board reversed its initial decision, Hannah-Jones said in a statement Tuesday released by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund she’s turned down the position and that the last few weeks “have been very dark.”
“To be treated so shabbily by my alma mater, by a university that has given me so much and which I only sought to give back to, has been deeply painful,” she wrote. “I fought this battle because I know that all across this country Black faculty, and faculty from other marginalized groups, are having their opportunities stifled, and that if political appointees could successfully stop my tenure, then they would only be emboldened to do it to others who do not have my platform. I had to stand up. And, I won the battle for tenure.”
Hannah-Jones added, “But I also get to decide what battles I continue to fight. And I have decided that instead of fighting to prove I belong at an institution that until 1955 prohibited Black Americans from attending, I am instead going to work in the legacy of a university not built by the enslaved but for those who once were. For too long, Black Americans have been taught that success is defined by gaining entry to and succeeding in historically white institutions. I have done that, and now I am honored and grateful to join the long legacy of Black Americans who have defined success by working to build up their own.”
Coates, a fellow MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipient, is joining the university’s College of Arts and Sciences as a faculty member.
The venerated author of the National Book Award-winning “Between the World and Me” and “The Beautiful Struggle” most recently completed his pre-Civil War era science fiction novel, “The Water Dancer.” He has also contributed to the Marvel Comic Book Universe with a series of “Black Panther” graphic novels.
Following his education at Howard University, Coates began his journalism career at The Washington City Paper, creating a career-defining retrospective on Go-Go, the official music of Washington, D.C. He went on to contribute to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Monthly and The Atlantic.
WABJ recognizes that none of this would be possible without an anonymous donor, the Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, and thanks these organizations for investing in the future of journalism.
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Founded in 1975, the Washington Association of Black Journalists is an organization for African-American journalists, journalism professors, public relations professionals and student journalists in the Washington, D.C., metro area. WABJ provides members with ongoing professional education opportunities and advocates for greater diversification of the profession.
