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Speaker 1: This is my legacy, and this speaks bonus drop. Nicole

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Speaker 1: Hanna Jones looks back on the New York Times of

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Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen projects, the Pulitzer Prize winning work that reframed

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Speaker 1: America's story. Joined by her husband Faraji, she reveals her

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Speaker 1: fight for pro democracy journalism and how she is raising

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Speaker 1: her daughter to stand Paul in today's climate. Let's jump in, Nicole.

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Speaker 2: Obviously, there was incredible love for this project, but.

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Speaker 3: Also fierce political pushback.

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Speaker 2: But what was the most surprising outcome and your greatest disappointment.

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Speaker 4: Everything about how this project has gone into the world

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Speaker 4: has shocked me. I didn't do this project because I

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Speaker 4: thought it would, you know, go on to become this

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Speaker 4: cultural phenomenon that it has, that it would turn into

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Speaker 4: two best selling books, that it would turn to a

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Speaker 4: six part documentary series that would have, you know, a

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Speaker 4: life where six years later, I'm still constantly talking about it.

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Speaker 4: I just this was just a project that was all

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Speaker 4: my soul to put into the world. And Fredie would

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Speaker 4: tell you the night before it published, I was a

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Speaker 4: mess because I had somehow convinced the New York Times

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Speaker 4: to put all these resources to the blackest thing they

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Speaker 4: have ever published. And I didn't know how people would

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Speaker 4: respond to it. I didn't know if if we would

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Speaker 4: have used all those resources and people would engage with

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Speaker 4: it the way that I hope. So everything the good

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Speaker 4: and the bad, and we focus a lot on the criticism.

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Speaker 4: But again, I know what this project has meant to

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Speaker 4: Black Americans. I know what has meant to people who

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Speaker 4: are not black. And I know that if if so

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Speaker 4: many people hadn't had their eyes opened, were not willing

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Speaker 4: to embrace and question, you wouldn't the attacks. You don't

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Speaker 4: attack things that are insignificant and not having impact. So

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Speaker 4: I've been surprised by everything that has happened. My greatest disappointment,

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Speaker 4: I think my greatest disappointments is not so much about

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Speaker 4: anything direct directly related to the project, but really just

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Speaker 4: in how little pushed back and how much capitulation and

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Speaker 4: acquiescence we are seeing to the national attacks on our history.

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Speaker 4: Just how you know, some of the most delete institutions

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Speaker 4: in the country right now are simply folding. They are

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Speaker 4: not fighting back, they're not using their resources. And it

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Speaker 4: makes you realize how much of what came out of

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty and all of those connections that people were

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Speaker 4: making was just performative. So I'm not disappointed really about anything.

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Speaker 4: Even even the attacks on the project don't disappoint me,

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Speaker 4: but just the lack of defense of black writers, of

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Speaker 4: black histories, of the ability to tell our stories honestly

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Speaker 4: and for you know, upholding values of diversity and inclusiveness.

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Speaker 4: And I'm not talking about some corporate DEI structure. I'm

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Speaker 4: talking about the actual values of diversity and inclusion in

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Speaker 4: a multi racial democracy. That's been my greatest disappointment is

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Speaker 4: the silence.

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Speaker 3: If you're looking for stories that move you, insights that

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Speaker 3: shift you, in conversations that stay deeply within you, do

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Speaker 3: us a favor and do yourself a favor and hit

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Speaker 3: every week.

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Speaker 5: Now.

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Speaker 3: Back to my legacy, Nicole. You founded the Center for

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Speaker 3: Journals and Democracy at Howard University, and this is incredibly

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Speaker 3: important right now, especially when you seek to train journalists.

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Speaker 3: When you've said eloquently that truth and journalism is under attack.

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Speaker 3: How are you creating that what you refer to as

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Speaker 3: that firewall in our democracy through journalism and how are

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Speaker 3: you inspiring the next generation of journalists to maintain that firewall?

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Speaker 4: So I founded the Center for Journalism and Democracy. Of course,

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Speaker 4: following my battle for tenure with my alma mater, the

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Speaker 4: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and after I

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Speaker 4: finally got my vote for tenure, I rejected it and

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Speaker 4: came to Howard University instead, where I founded this center.

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Speaker 4: And that was obviously a very intentional choice. I really

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Speaker 4: believed that our profession had failed in how they covered

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Speaker 4: a once in a in the history of a nation

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Speaker 4: candidate called Donald Trump, and that they didn't seem to

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Speaker 4: understand that the type of imbalance between the political parties

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Speaker 4: meant you couldn't just cover what was happening politically as

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Speaker 4: business as usual, as horse race politics of you know,

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Speaker 4: he says, she said.

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Speaker 3: So I.

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Speaker 4: Wanted to really challenge this notion that journalism could be

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Speaker 4: objective in the face of eroding democracy, that as a

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Speaker 4: profession we have to be pro democracy because you can't exist.

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Speaker 4: A free press cannot exist without democracy, and democracy cannot

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Speaker 4: exist without a free press. So I wanted to come

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Speaker 4: and help train future generations of journalists at historically black

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Speaker 4: colleges and universities, particularly because I believe that few groups,

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Speaker 4: maybe none, understand the fallacy of American democracy better than

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Speaker 4: Black Americans, and that experience is we didn't have it right.

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Speaker 4: We did not have it until nineteen sixty five with

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Speaker 4: the passage of the Voting Rights Act. So Black Americans

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Speaker 4: understand what this country is capable of. We understand that

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Speaker 4: when people say this is the oldest continuing democracy in

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Speaker 4: the world, that's not the truth that in fact, we've

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Speaker 4: only had multiracial democracy for sixty plus years, and that

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Speaker 4: the only reason we have that is because of a enduring,

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Speaker 4: decades long freedom struggle and the violence suppression of that

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Speaker 4: freedom struggle. So I understand that when our journalists are

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Speaker 4: not being trained with that historical understanding, then they are

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Speaker 4: covering policy tics without actually understanding what drives politics in

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Speaker 4: this country and how those politics work. So that's what

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Speaker 4: we're trying to do at the Center is train HBCU

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Speaker 4: students who study journalism in pro democracy, historically informed journalism

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Speaker 4: to say, you know, we can look at it, at

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Speaker 4: what's happening in the country right now and see that

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Speaker 4: our systems of checks and balances are failing and that

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Speaker 4: everything that we thought was enforceable was actually just some

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Speaker 4: agreed upon rules. And as soon as you have a

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Speaker 4: politician or a political party that doesn't agree on the

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Speaker 4: rules anymore, then it all kind of falls apart. But

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Speaker 4: that one kind of as I have said, firewall remains

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Speaker 4: the press, and we have to be we must be

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Speaker 4: up to the job. If this democracy is to be saved,

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Speaker 4: then I'm not sure that it will be. But nineteen

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Speaker 4: seventy six, I was born in the Bison tenn a

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Speaker 4: year I was born, as you know, as part of

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Speaker 4: that first generation of black Americans in the entire history

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Speaker 4: of the United States who was born with full rights

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Speaker 4: of citizenship. You know, a decade before I was born,

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Speaker 4: we were in the throes of the civil rights movement

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Speaker 4: simply to have black Americans, uh be able to have

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Speaker 4: the same rights as any other American a decade before

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Speaker 4: I was born. And I feel a great responsibility to

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Speaker 4: not lose what my ancestors allowed me to have. That

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Speaker 4: I have to be in the fight for that, and

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Speaker 4: so I just think that that is my role. That is,

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Speaker 4: as long as I have the ability to to act,

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Speaker 4: I have to be acting to to preserve what was

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Speaker 4: given to me. And to repay that debt. And I

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Speaker 4: see my work at Howard as doing that the new

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Speaker 4: generations of journalists.

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Speaker 5: And it's interesting too because your daughter is fifteen, ours

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Speaker 5: is seventeen, so you know, she is entering her senior

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Speaker 5: year of high school. So we're starting that whole college university.

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Speaker 5: You know, all of that you mentioned earlier about the

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Speaker 5: silence that's been happening a lot in these in you know,

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Speaker 5: in colleges and universities. Now that your daughters, and this

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Speaker 5: is to both of you all or she's because before

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Speaker 5: you blink, she's going to be in college. You've done

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Speaker 5: so much work transforming law education system. Are you concerned

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Speaker 5: about the climate of colleges and universities and is that

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Speaker 5: in any way informing your decision or her decision of

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Speaker 5: where she's looking at going to school.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I'm certainly concerned, and both as a faculty,

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Speaker 4: a college faculty member, as someone who is reporting on

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Speaker 4: the impacts of this administration on black people and other

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Speaker 4: marginalized groups across the country. And yeah, as a parent, now,

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Speaker 4: my dream has been for my child to go to

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Speaker 4: Howard since she was three years old, So it was

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Speaker 4: never you know, as far as I'm concerned. My a

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Speaker 4: tension was never that my my daughter would go to

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Speaker 4: a PWY. And I learned, as I'm sure you all know,

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Speaker 4: as parents of a teenager, that if you want them

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Speaker 4: to do something, you better stop talking about it.

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Speaker 2: So I call it.

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Speaker 4: So I bringing her to Howard events, you know, brought

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Speaker 4: her to homecoming last year, took her to the Legacy Classic,

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Speaker 4: took her to my classes, and so far she also

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Speaker 4: says she wants to go to Howard. So I'm hoping that.

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Speaker 2: She will.

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Speaker 4: We'll be able to spend her college years and that

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Speaker 4: protective bubble of an HBCU. Not that they are utopia,

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Speaker 4: but I think, particularly in this climate, and that's why

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Speaker 4: we're seeing record enrollment at HBCUs across the country, it's

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Speaker 4: so many black parents who themselves were likely, you know,

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Speaker 4: among those first significant groups of people who went into

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Speaker 4: those pwis. I personally was scarred by my experience at

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Speaker 4: Notre Dame, and that's why I really wanted my own

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Speaker 4: daughter to go to an HBCU. And I think in

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Speaker 4: this political climate where you're seeing again, you know, are

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Speaker 4: most elite schools that are shuttering their multicultural centers, that

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Speaker 4: are ending their DEI practices that I feel like that

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Speaker 4: would be a very unwelcome environment. So I think a

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Speaker 4: lot of black parents are are making similar choices for

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Speaker 4: their kids, and I think this is a time where

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Speaker 4: where we as black communities then really need to support

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Speaker 4: and embrace our HBCUs and make sure or that they

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Speaker 4: are getting the proper funding to meet that need.

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Speaker 2: I remember our daughter having a conversation. She was like,

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Speaker 2: I want to go to and I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: name the university, but it also started with an H

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Speaker 2: and Nicole is like, I'm only paying for a HB.

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Speaker 5: So, Nicole, that wasn't subtle at all.

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Speaker 4: I was right, I'll support you wherever you go, but

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Speaker 4: not financially. Okay.

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Speaker 2: In the beginning I thought it was harsh, But when

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Speaker 2: what I really really heard from it, I got a

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Speaker 2: chance to process what that meant. You know, you know,

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Speaker 2: I hope that knowing and seeing what our pwis are

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Speaker 2: doing in terms of you know, falling to their knees

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Speaker 2: to the Trump administration, you know, we see a benefit

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Speaker 2: ensuring that our black kids are giddy. Part of their

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Speaker 2: quality education is the experience itself, and that the harm

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Speaker 2: that is done when a black child is isolated from

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Speaker 2: their community, and it's such isolation to the part where

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Speaker 2: they don't even see where they fit. And just because

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Speaker 2: you enroll black students, does it mean that you created

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Speaker 2: the environment for them to thrive? And so we I

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Speaker 2: believe I went to a HBCU, my grandmother went to HBCU,

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Speaker 2: my family went to HBCUs, my grandfather. So I feel

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Speaker 2: like it's very important and I hope that our ahbcus

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Speaker 2: do hear the call and meet that and meet that

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Speaker 2: call as well. So I thought that that by all

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Speaker 2: means we work hard. Why not take that investment much

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Speaker 2: higher and make sure that we investing in our HBCUs.

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Speaker 5: It's an incredibly important conversation and one in which a

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Speaker 5: lot of black families are having right now.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share,

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Speaker 1: and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social

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Speaker 1: media and YouTube. New episodes drop every two with bonus

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Speaker 1: content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor

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Speaker 1: King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.

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Speaker 1: A Legacy Plus Studio production distributed by iHeartMedia. Creator and

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Speaker 1: executive producer Suzanne Hayward, co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen

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