Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of “The 1619 Project,” will give a free talk in Richmond.
The program starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 19, in Earlham College’s Goddard Auditorium in Carpenter Hall, 801 National Road W.
Admission is free for the community. No tickets are required.
Her visit includes a 75-minute moderated discussion, “In Conversation about Truth, History, and The 1619 Project,” followed by an audience question and answer session and book signing.
Hannah-Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in history and African-American studies from University of Notre Dame and a master’s in mass communication from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Hannah-Jones is the creator of “The 1619 Project,” an investigative initiative by the New York Times that reframes American history by centering the consequences of slavery and contributions of Black Americans.
Earlham President Paul Sniegowski said campus leaders are thrilled to bring Hannah-Jones to town for the college’s second annual Presidential Lecture Series.
“Nikole Hannah-Jones is recognized as a powerful voice of social conscience urging America to confront and acknowledge its full, true history,” he said in a news release.
The project began as a podcast but has expanded to include books, such as the children’s edition of The 1619 Project, titled “Born on the Water,” and the formal book edition’s podcast. More recently, “The 1619 Project” was reworked into a six-part docuseries on Hulu.
Hannah-Jones’ reporting has earned the MacArthur Fellowship (known as the Genius grant), a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times. She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy.
Hannah-Jones also co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color. In 2022 she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.
A version of this article appeared in the February 5 2025 print edition of the Western Wayne News.