Hank Klibanoff, managing editor at *The Atlanta Journal-Constitution* and author of *The Race Beat*; Doris Derby, photographer, educator, and civil rights activist; and Brett Gadsden, assistant professor of African American Studies at Emory University, discuss how the nation's press came to recognize the importance of the civil rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the 20th century. This event is moderated by Julian Cox.
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Hank Klibanoff was born in Florence, Alabama, and grew up witnessing the evolution of race relations in the South. Those experiences, along with his 35 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, were key influences as he researched and co-wrote *The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation*. The book won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for history. Klibanoff, who was managing editor of *The Atlanta Journal-Constitution* for six years until last year, is now managing editor of the *Cold Case Truth* and *Justice Project*, which uses investigative reporting to dig out the truth behind unsolved racial murders that took place during the 60-year civil rights era in the South. The project, led by the Center for Investigative Reporting, is using reporters, filmmakers, multimedia experts, public interest advocacy groups, lawyers and archivists to fill in history's huge gaps, to correct its myths and to bring justice, reconciliation and, where possible, criminal prosecution. He worked for *The Boston Globe* for three years, then for The *Philadelphia Inquirer* for 20 years, including three as the newspaper's Midwest correspondent, based in Chicago and responsible for a 12-state region.
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Doris Derby is an educator and artist who was involved in the American Civil Rights Movement. She was a founding member of the New York branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She then traveled to Mississippi to organize an adult literacy program at Tougaloo College. While in Mississippi, she co-founded the Free Southern Theater, which aimed to educate southern African-Americans about their history and about the civil rights movement. When the FST moved to New Orleans in 1965, Derby remained in Mississippi, working as an educator, organizer, and artist until 1972.
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Brett Gadsden is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. He received his Ph.D in History from Northwestern University. His book, *Victory Without Triumph: School Desegregation in Delaware*, is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press.
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Julian Cox was appointed as the new curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in April 2005. Cox comes to the High from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles where he served as associate curator in the department of photographs. He is a co-author of the critically acclaimed publication *Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs* (2003), the first catalogue of her work. He has also worked at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, England, and the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. He received a Master of Philosophy degree in the history of photography from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1990, and a BA in art history from the University of Manchester, England, in 1987.