Hank Klibanoff, co-author of a definitive and Pulitzer Prize-winning work on American journalism during the Civil Rights Era, will speak at Auburn University Thursday, Sept. 19, at 3 p.m. in Tichenor Hall 215. The public is welcome.
Klibanoff will speak on "Birmingham 1963: Pride, Prejudice and the Perversion of Truth in News Coverage" as part of the Media Messenger lecture series conducted by the Journalism Program in the School of Communication and Journalism.
In 2007, Klibanoff and his co-author, Eugene Roberts, former New York Times managing editor and chief of the Times' Southern bureau during the civil rights era, were awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation." It explores news coverage of civil rights from the 1930s through the late 1960s, particularly the impact of the black press, the Northern press, the Southern liberal and segregationist press, television and photojournalism.
"'The Race Beat' is one of the most important books ever written on the way the press, both in the South and elsewhere, covered the most important social movement in the 20th Century," said Judy Sheppard, associate director for the journalism program. "Both Mr. Klibanoff and Mr. Roberts -- who also has spoken here as part of the Neil O. and Henrietta Davis Lecture Series -- are, obviously, brilliant reporters and editors. They are also Southerners who truly understand the context of those times. This combination made 'The Race Beat' a work that stands alone in revealing whatever truths we can ever really know about that part of our history."
Klibanoff also serves as managing editor of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project (www.coldcases.org), which uses investigative reporting, documentary filmmaking and multimedia production to dig out the truth behind unsolved racial murders that took place during the civil rights era in the South. At Emory, he teaches a course in which students research unsolved civil rights-era race crimes in Georgia cases. These endeavors seek to fill in history's gaps, to correct myths and to bring exposure, reconciliation and, where possible, criminal prosecution.
An Alabama native who was born in Florence (and first worked at the Florence Times-Daily) and is now an Atlanta resident, Klibanoff spent 36 years at major newspapers across the country and is now director of the Journalism Program and James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University.
Hank serves on the John Chancellor Excellence in Journalism Award Committee at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and is on the board of VOX Teen Communications, an Atlanta non-profit after-school program that uses print and online journalism to help teens develop the skills and resources to express themselves.
Klibanoff and his wife Laurie Leonard, a speech therapist, have three daughters, including Corinne, who is a freshman at Auburn University.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
