Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and Iowa native Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of “The 1619 Project,” will appear at Iowa State University to present the 2022 Manatt-Phelps Lecture in Political Science at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 2, at Stephens Auditorium.
Nikole Hannah-Jones. Photo by James Estrin. Larger image.
The lecture, titled “A Conversation About the 1619 Project,” is free, open to the public and does not require a ticket for entrance.
Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and the creator of “The 1619 Project,” an ongoing initiative to reframe American history with slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of the national narrative.
Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her a MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes referred to as “genius grants”; a Peabody Award; two George Polk Awards and three National Magazine Awards. 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. This year, she opened the 1619 Freedom School, a free, after-school literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.
Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her Bachelor of Arts in history and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.
The program will feature a question-and-answer session conducted by moderators with pre-submitted questions. Questions must be emailed to lectures@iastate.edu by noon on Nov. 2 to be considered. Questions submitted by ISU students will be given priority, and there is no guarantee that time will allow for all submitted questions to be asked.
The Manatt-Phelps Lecture Series, established in 2002 by the late Ambassador Charles T. Manatt and Kathleen Manatt and Thomas and Elizabeth Phelps, brings to campus a prominent practitioner or scholar to address issues of significance to the United States and Iowa. It is now overseen by Michele Manatt, daughter of Charles and Kathleen.
Previous Manatt-Phelps lectures have featured ambassadors from crucial American allies and friends – France, Germany, India, Spain and Sweden – as well as distinguished leaders from America’s largest trading partners, such as Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs and Canada’s former minister of foreign affairs. Other lectures have been presented by then-U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), then-U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska); former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana), Washington Post columnist and Brookings Institution senior fellow E.J. Dionne, counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance, MSNBC anchor and business correspondent Ali Velshi, NBC News national security analyst and former senior FBI counterterrorism official Frank Figliuzzi, and former Republican National Committee chair and popular podcast host Michael Steele.
Co-sponsors of this year’s lecture include the Department of Political Science, the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, the African American Studies Program; College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Department of History; Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication; Margaret Sloss Center for Women and Gender Equity; Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Parks Library; University Committee for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equity; Women’s and Gender Studies Program; and Committee on Lectures, which is funded by Student Government.