Pulitzer prize-winning author, reporter and editor, Hank Klibanoff spoke to a public affairs reporting class on Wednesday as part of his stint as the professional-in-residence at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Klibanoff told the class that there are many reasons for people to get into the business of journalism because different things motivate people. His motivation for becoming a journalist is clear.
Born in Florence, Ala. In 1949, Klibanoff grew up in the rural South during a time of intense friction in terms of race relations.
Klibanoff was five years old when the US Supreme Court passed down a decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case stating that segregation was unconstitutional. He believes that decision “changed the world bigger than a tsunami.”
In Florence, Ala. The Tennessee Valley Authority, a government owned power company, provided cheap electricity which attracted industry to the area. The industry brought a lot of northern influence in the area. In fact, it was a melting pot of races, nationalities and cultures, which led to a more progressive atmosphere.
Even in that atmosphere “black people, they were barely even second-class citizens,” Klibanoff said.
The town’s reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education decision was twelve years of “massive resistance to integration.” In fact, Klibanoff’s public school did not integrate until he was a junior in high school.
However, even early in his life Klibanoff had an interest in race relations. He believes that the rigid atmosphere of Jim Crow led to this interest. He also had a paper route as a kid, which put him in touch with the Birmingham News. Civil rights issues were big at the time, and he read the newspaper.
Finally Klibanoff said that early on his parents were a large influence. His mother is from New York and his father is from Tennessee. His family is Jewish and his parents met through the only other Jewish couple living in Florence at the time.
These influences led Klibanoff become a journalist and eventually an editor. He also co-wrote The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation a book that focused on the relationship between the media and the Civil Rights Movement and won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for history.
In his current position at the Justice Media Partnership, Klibanoff investigates cold cases from the Civil Rights era. He feels that African-Americans need their history from this time filled in, and he’s equally convinced that former Klansmen need to unburden their actions of that time. His project is important because all kinds of people participated in the “segregation and dehumanization of black people.”
