The Charlotta Bass Media Trailblazer Speaker Series

ADMISSION:
Admission is free.

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EVENT RULES: Special event rules apply for this event, including a clear bag policy. Click HERE for details and guest policies.

DESCRIPTION:
Join us for the inaugural event of the Charlotta Bass Media Trailblazer Speaker Series at USC, featuring Nikole Hannah-Jones. The staff writer at The New York Times Magazine is the Pulitzer Prize–winning creator of The 1619 Project, which illuminates the legacy of slavery in the contemporary United States and highlights the contributions of Black Americans to every aspect of American society. The book version was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller.

This special event will be presented in conjunction with the launch of The Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab at USC Annenberg. The Bass Lab is the university’s first-of-its kind Black media archive and storytelling space with a mission to save, study, and share social justice media that changed the world. USC Annenberg professor, Bass Lab founder, and award-winning author Dr. Allissa V. Richardson will moderate the conversation. USC President Carol L. Folt will introduce the event.

Bios:
Nikole Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her 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 is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and this year she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.

Dr. Allissa V. Richardson is an Associate Professor of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. She researches how African Americans use mobile and social media to produce innovative forms of journalism—especially in times of crisis. Richardson is the author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism, a prize-winning book exploring the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter, from 2014 to 2018.

Presented by the Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Co-sponsored by USC Visions and Voices.

Photo: James Estrin