Media Advisory: Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of ‘The 1619 Project’ to speak at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist and creator of “The 1619 Project,” a longform multimedia journalism initiative that’s dedicated to re-examining the history and legacy of slavery in the United States

She will speak at the University at Buffalo at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 16, in the Center for the Arts, North Campus, as part of UB’s Distinguished Speakers Series.

Note: All guests must follow UB’s health and safety guidelines, which include wearing a tight-fitting mask and showing proof of vaccination. For more specific information, visit: www.tinyurl.com/wtycp65v.

Hannah-Jones covers racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine, and has spent years chronicling the way official policy has created — and maintains — racial segregation in housing and schools. Her deeply personal reports on the Black experience in America offer a compelling case for greater equity. 

“The 1619 Project” debuted in The New York Times Magazine in 2019. Since then, the initiative turned into a chart-topping book titled “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story.” Named for the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in America, the project features an ongoing series of essays and art on the relationship between slavery and everything from social infrastructure and segregation to music and sugar — all by Black American authors, activists, journalists and more. 

Hannah-Jones has written extensively on the history of racism, school resegregation, and the disarray of hundreds of desegregation orders, as well as the decades-long failure of the federal government to enforce the landmark 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Her piece “Worlds Apart” in The New York Times Magazine won the National Magazine Award for “journalism that illuminates issues of national importance” as well as the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism.

In 2016, she was awarded a Peabody Award and George Polk Award for radio reporting for her “This American Life” story, “The Problem We All Live With.” She was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists, and was also named to 2019’s The Root 100 as well as Essence’s Woke 100. Her reporting has also won Deadline Club Awards, Online Journalism Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service, the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting, and the Emerson College President’s Award for Civic Leadership.

In February 2020, she was profiled by Essence as part of their Black History Month series, celebrating “the accomplishments made by those in the past, as well as those paving the way for the future.”

During her speech at UB, still photography will be limited to the first five minutes of her lecture. Audio and video recording is not permitted.

Working media may reserve tickets by contacting Doug Sitler in the UB Office of Communications at drsitler@buffalo.edu no later than noon on Feb. 16. Reserved tickets may be picked up at the will-call window in the Center for the Arts prior to the program. Media may need to show press credentials to be admitted to the program.