No one chronicles the most important events in Black life across the globe more incisively and vibrantly than Gary Younge. His current Orwell Award-winning book, Dispatches from the Diaspora, records world-shaking events: from following Nelson Mandela during his first election campaign in South Africa, reporting from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, to the Black Lives Matter movement starting to make waves; plus capturing intimate and revealing interviews with major Black figures including Maya Angelou, Angela Davis and Desmond Tutu. Gary Younge discusses being a witness to history with Kerri Forrest, Senior Program Director for Equity Centered Leadership and Philanthropy for MDC, a legacy nonprofit committed to equitable systems change in the South.

British journalist Gary Younge was The Guardian newspaper’s correspondent in America for many years and is now Professor of Sociology at Manchester University in the UK, the city at the center of the journal’s research into its historic links with slavery. His contribution to the paper’s game-changing publication this Spring, Cotton Capital, is titled ‘Lest We Remember: How Britain Hides Its Past’. Kerri Forrest’s career encompasses 16 years of journalism with national broadcast outlets MSNBC, NBC NEWS, and CBS NEWS.

Recorded November 12, 2023