Award-winning investigative journalist and New York Times Magazine staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones will be Fairfield University’s keynote speaker at the 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation on Wednesday, January 29 at 8 p.m. at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The convocation is free and open to the public. The theme for Fairfield University’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. observance is The Challenge of Change: Intersectional Justice and Democracy. A week of programming celebrating the life and influence of the late Dr. King will be held from January 27 to 31, 2020.

Hannah-Jones, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, reports on racial injustice and the black experience in America, and has written extensively on the history of racism and school re-segregation. She is the lead writer on The New York Times’ multimedia initiative, The 1619 Project, an ongoing series that focuses on the history and legacy of American slavery. A co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, Hannah-Jones is currently writing a book on school segregation called The Problem We All Live With.

Hannah-Jones’s reporting has been featured in ProPublica, The Atlantic magazine, Huffington Post, Essence magazine, The Week magazine, Grist, Politico Magazine, and on Face the Nation, This American Life, NPR, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Democracy Now!, and radio stations across the country. Her work has also won a Peabody, a Polk, a National Magazine Award, Deadline Club awards, Online Journalism awards, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service, the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting, and the Emerson College President’s Award for Civic Leadership.

Reserve tickets for the 2020 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation by visiting quickcenter.com, or call the box office at 203-254-4010 or toll-free at 1-877-ARTS-396.