An award-winning journalist will be at Ohio University Thursday to have a conversation with attendees about what it’s like to be black in America.
Soledad O’Brien, former host of Starting Point, a CNN morning news show, and CEO of Starfish Media Group, will stop in Athens as part of her Black in America tour.
Athens is the only stop in Ohio O’Brien will make as part of her nationwide tour.
“We’re hoping that folks will come out and take part in a conversation about race in America,” she said.
The tour is based on O’Brien’s series — in its seventh year — which has covered financial disparities in wealth between blacks and whites, and the education of African American boys.
“The tour will take a look at education, will take a look at incarceration, will take a look at opportunity, achievement and opportunity gaps,” O’Brien said. “We’ll look at financial issues, and we’ll look at social issues as well. It’s really a way to talk about the black experience today in a conversational form.”
The event, which is being sponsored by the Scripps College of Communication, the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and the School of Communication Studies, is the second event this year that has featured an award winning journalist on campus.
Greg Moore, editor of The Denver Post, spoke on Monday.
“To be able to hear Greg Moore and Soledad O’Brien in the same week, … that’s an amazing opportunity for a student, a journalism student or anybody else on this campus or any community member for that matter,” said Robert Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.
One faculty member looks at the opportunity to have O’Brien on campus as a way to discuss race in America.
“Having the opportunity to engage in dialogue about race is important for all of us, and few are more qualified to lead this type of discussion than Soledad O’Brien,” Scott Titsworth, dean of the Scripps College of Communication, said in an email. “Despite the fact that our culture has grown so much in terms of our perspectives on race, we still have a great deal to learn from one another and this will be an exciting opportunity to do just that.”
The conversation will be an open and safe place where people can feel free to discuss issues about race, O’Brien said.
“I don’t think that the goal is to have agreement at the end,” O’Brien said. “I don’t think that that’s possible, but I do think that the conversations about race in this country today are very tricky.”
@Mariadevito13
md781510@ohiou.edu
This article originally ran in print under the headline "Acclaimed journalist to speak on race, education in America"
