Greg Tate
A special citation for the late writer and critic Greg Tate, whose language – cribbed from literature, academia, popular culture and hip-hop – was as influential as the content of his ideas. His aesthetic, innovations and intellectual originality, particularly in his pioneering hip-hop criticism, continue to influence subsequent generations, especially writers and critics of color.
Chinara Tate accepts her father's posthumous Pulitzer Prize Special Citation from Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong. (David Dini/The Pulitzer Prizes)
Biography
Greg Tate was a music and popular culture critic and journalist whose work appeared in many publications, including The Village Voice, Vibe, Spin, The Wire and Downbeat. He was the author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience and the editor of Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. Tate, via guitar and baton, also led the conducted improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, who toured internationally.
Winners in Special Citations and Awards
The Journalists of Ukraine
The Pulitzer Board awards a special citation to the journalists of Ukraine for their courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting during Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of their country and his propaganda war in Russia. Despite bombardment, abductions, occupation, and even deaths in their ranks, they have persisted in their effort to provide an accurate picture of a terrible reality, doing honor to Ukraine and to journalists around the world.
Darnella Frazier
For courageously recording the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality around the world, highlighting the crucial role of citizens in journalists' quest for truth and justice.
Ida B. Wells
For her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching. The citation comes with a bequest by the Pulitzer Prize Board of at least $50,000 in support of her mission. The grant was given to the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting (co-founded by 2020 Commentary winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ron Nixon, 2022 Local Reporting winner Corey Johnson and Topher Sanders in 2015), which in turn decided to contribute it to the Ida B. Wells Scholarship Fund at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism of the City University of New York.
2024 Prize Winners
Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker
For a searing indictment of our legal system’s reliance on the felony murder charge and its disparate consequences, often devastating for communities of color.
Staff of Reuters
For an eye-opening series of accountability stories focused on Elon Musk’s automobile and aerospace businesses, stories that displayed remarkable breadth and depth and provoked official probes of his companies’ practices in Europe and the United States.
Hannah Dreier of The New York Times
For a deeply reported series of stories revealing the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States—and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, contributor, The Washington Post
For passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.