By Morgan Lane and Zachary Daly
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
Despite efforts by the Trump administration to rollback DEI programs at public universities and other institutions, it is important to understand the dynamics of a multiracial democracy like America if the country hopes to progress forward, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones said at Towson University Friday.
Speaking at the school’s Inclusive Excellence Summit, the New York Times Magazine writer argued that diversity “isn’t just about political correctness,” as some conservative claim. “Diversity ensures that [a society’s] entire picture is told,” she said.
Hannah-Jones, who spearheaded the magazine’s controversial “1619 Project,” said it is important to challenge the parts of a nation’s collective memory that create inaccurate mythologies about the past. Only by confronting the dark side of America’s history can the country eventually reach its ideals, she said.
She said redlining – the practice of using local zoning laws to segregate neighborhoods by race – made Baltimore one of the earliest examples of a city that isolated African Americans into disadvantaged areas.
“Baltimore was an innovator of race-based housing discrimination, because it was in Baltimore that one of the first laws actually forced segregation,” Hannah-Jones said.
Hannah-Jones said that white people benefitted from redlining in the 1950s and 1960s because their property had higher housing values and they could move to any neighborhood that was affordable to them. On the other hand, she said Black residents were “contained to certain neighborhoods,” which led to a growing wealth gap between white and Black Baltimore residents.
Hannah-Jones, an Iowa native, said the 14th Amendment was intended to end the subordination of Black Americans, but she said the Trump administration is using it to justify its attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
With recent pullbacks on DEI initiatives among big corporations, Hannah-Jones reflected on how this affects Black journalists.
“We’re seeing mass layoffs of Black journalists,” Hannah-Jones said. “We’re seeing the shuttering of the verticals for people of color, for queer people, and we’re seeing really a right-wing takeover of some of our most important news organizations.”
She said diversity among journalists is especially important at “a time of such polarization” because newsrooms that look like America are better positioned to report on the many different cultural experiences that exist in the country.
She said reporting is incomplete without diversity in journalism.
A few weeks after the murder of Charlie Kirk in September, Hannah-Jones wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine titled “What the Public Memory of Charlie Kirk Revealed.” In it, she argued that the bipartisan celebration of the right-wing influencer – who frequently attacked African Americans, the LGBTQ+ community, Muslims, and others – was a clear indication that dangerous ideologies had become mainstreamed.
She said diversity isn’t just about “being Black, being queer or being Latino.” She argued that diversity efforts like affirmative action can provide equal opportunities for African Americans, who, she pointed out, spent nearly two-thirds of their time in North America enslaved or facing other forms of racial discrimination.
“I don’t know how much I benefited from affirmative action throughout my life,” Hannah-Jones said. “I’m sure, I’m positive, I did, because all affirmative action has ever done is ensure you have to give someone like me a chance.”
During the event, which drew an audience of about 250 people, Hannah-Jones answered prepared questions from Allyyah Aali, Towson’s Student Government Association president, and Patricia Bradley, Towson’s vice president for Inclusion and Institutional Equity.
One of the first topics that she covered during the hour-long event was the “1619 Project,” the New York Times Magazine piece that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, saying that it “challenges the collective memory” that people have of the United States.
In 2019, Hannah-Jones began the creation of the 1619 Project, which argues that the true beginning of America was 1619, when the first enslaved people were brought to Colonial Virginia.
The project itself is centered in controversy.
Some historians see the project as a misrepresentation of early American history, saying it’s racially divisive. Some states, like Texas and Mississippi, have proposed bills to ban teaching the project in schools. In 2021, Republican Ken Buck, the former chair of the Colorado Republican Party, called it “un-American.”
“I’m a journalist. It’s a work of journalism,” Hannah-Jones said. “If you read the project or listen to the podcast or watch the documentary, you know the project is really about modern America, not about the past.”
Once she finished her remarks, the audience was allowed to ask questions.
Jordan Cook, a senior journalism student at Towson University, asked how she could maintain her personal safety while advocating for change.
Hannah-Jones’ answer was simple: sometimes safety has to be sacrificed for activism.
“There may have to be a sacrifice to be made,” Hannah-Jones said. “Even if it’s big to you, better than us sacrificing our democracy and therefore our rights.”
Hannah-Jones finished her speech with a poignant reminder to the youth in the audience. She asked the audience what they would’ve seen themselves doing if they lived in Nazi Germany or through the Civil Rights Movement.
“We always like to place ourselves on the side of the activists and the people who stood up. Whatever you’re doing now is what you would’ve done back then,” Hannah-Jones said. “This is your chance.”