In the wake of the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend, and President Trump’s response, it seems fitting to revisit a New York Times series on race relations that won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. I was a reporter and editor on the yearlong project, “How Race Is Lived In America.” I am now the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes.
The arc of my own career represents the inclusive progress that many people think is now in peril in America. I am the first woman, the first person of color and the youngest administrator to oversee the Pulitzer Prizes in its 101-year history. I am also an African American woman who was a small town girl reared in Kentucky and was the first person in my family to graduate from college.
When I left my childhood home seeking to write about the country and the world, I had no idea that some of my most meaningful work would involve reporting on race and class. And yet, they are subjects that keep emerging as a powerful theme.
When we embarked on the Times race project, our goal was to answer two questions; how far have we come in race relations in America and what still divides us? These are the same question the events in Charlottesville have many of us reflecting on anew. That is what prompted me to re-read some of the pieces from that series and left me convinced of two realities. One is that we have indeed taken steps forward as a nation in the nearly two decades since the series was published. The country elected an African American president. LGBT men and women now have the right to marry. My son is growing up in a rapidly browning America.
And yet the other reality is that, just as we found in our reporting back then, the nation is reeling from racial hatred, violence and pain. I invite you to spend some time reading the series, and I wonder if you will come away thinking that we are better or worse off now?
Read the full New York Times series “How Race Is Lived In America” here.