April Ryan’s Race In America Panel 2025 — with Nikole Hannah Jones and Don Lemon – BlackPressUSA
Join April Ryan, White House correspondent at TheGrio and author of Black Women Will Save the World: An Anthem, Under Fire, At Mama’s Knee, and The Presidency in Black and White for another installment in an ongoing series of discussions focusing on the panelists’ most recent books and current events. Ryan will examine recent and longstanding issues with the following panelists: White House Correspondent April Ryan has a unique vantage point as the only Black female reporter covering urban issues from the White House—a position she has held since the Clinton era. April can be seen almost daily on CNN as a political analyst and is the Washington, DC, Bureau Chief for The Grio. She has been featured in Essence, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle magazine, and other top publications, has served on the board of the prestigious White House Correspondents Association, and is an esteemed member of the National Press Club. April is the author of the award-winning book, The Presidency in Black and White, and At Mama’s Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White. She lives in Baltimore County, Maryland.
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine, and creator of the landmark 1619 Project. In 2017, she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, known as the Genius Grant, for her work on educational inequality. She has also won a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards, three National Magazine Awards, and the 2018 John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism from Columbia University. In 2016, Hannah-Jones co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a training and mentorship organization geared toward increasing the number of investigative reporters of color. Hannah-Jones is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she has founded the Center for Journalism and Democracy. In 2021, she was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Don Lemon spent three decades on local and national TV, a trusted voice after the Sandy Hook massacre, in war-torn Eastern Europe, and during the riots of 2020. Anchoring Don Lemon Tonight on CNN, he was known for hard-hitting interviews with public officials and compassionate dialogue with everyday people. The Don Lemon Show is now streaming on all platforms. His book on race, This is the Fire, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. His most recent book is, I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America.
