Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones to Deliver 55th Annual Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture at Holy Cross

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, will deliver the 55th annual Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture on the evening of April 12 in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public. 

Following her talk, Hannah-Jones will sign copies of her book, “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story,” which will be available for purchase at the event. A six-part limited docu-series "The 1619 Project," an expansion of the original project, is set to premiere on Jan. 26 on Hulu.

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 in 2022 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’s degree in history and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.

In keeping with the traditional practice of the Hanify-Howland lecture series, Hannah-Jones will also conduct a seminar on campus prior to the lecture, which will allow students to interact with the speaker one-on-one. The speaker is nominated annually by a committee of Holy Cross students.

The Hanify-Howland lecture series recognizes individuals who have distinguished themselves in the realm of public service in honor of Judge Edward F. Hanify, a member of the graduating class of 1904, and Weston Howland. Howland's admiration and respect for Judge Hanify, his warm affection for the Hanify family and his faith in the purposes and objectives of the College of the Holy Cross led him to establish the annual Hanify Memorial Lecture.

Since 1965, the Hanify-Howland lecture series has brought a host of distinguished speakers to Holy Cross, including: astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson; Clarence Thomas ’71, associate justice of the United States; investigative journalist Bob Woodward; Steven D. Levitt, co-author of the bestselling books “Freakonomics” (Harper, 2009) and “Superfreakonomics” (Harper, 2011); award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien; and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.