Philip Merrill College of Journalism | University of Maryland

Prof. Gene Roberts Wins Pulitzer Prize

“The Race Beat” Co-Authored With Hank Klibanoff Wins History Prize

For immediate release, April. 16, 2007

COLLEGE PARK, Md.— The Pulitzer Board announced this afternoon that Philip Merrill College of Journalism Prof. Gene Roberts and Atlanta Journal Constitution Managing Editor Hank Klibanoff won the Pulitzer Prize for History for their book, “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.”

Gene Roberts
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As executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Roberts oversaw a staff that won a remarkable 17 Pulitzers in 18 years. This, however, is the first award to him personally.

This award brings the number of Pulitzer winners on the full-time faculty to seven. Roberts is also the first sitting professor to win a Pulitzer at the University in more than 20 years.

“Gene Roberts has been inspiring journalists for several generations, and he continues to do so with the remarkable book that he has written with his friend, Hank Klibanoff,” said Dean Thomas Kunkel. “The College of Journalism is delighted that this book has been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize.”

“The Race Beat” examines how the nation’s press, after decades of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news event of the Twentieth Century.

Roberts and Klibanoff drew on private correspondence, notes and interviews to show how newspaper reporters and editors, first in the South and then nationwide, helped reveal to the nation the inequities and events that led up to and occurred during the civil rights movement.

Critically praised, the book was described by Eric Alterman of The Nation as "one of those remarkable works of history that make you see your own times more clearly."

Sarah Schweitzer of the Boston Globe wrote: "The Race Beat is a compelling reminder of the need for a vibrant and free press, with the resources and resourcefulness to shine a light on the nation's wrongs."

Both Roberts and Klibanoff spent the early years of their careers covering the South. A native of Goldsboro, N.C., Roberts reported for the Goldsboro News-Argus, Virginian Pilot, The (Raleigh) News & Observer and the Detroit Free Press before joining the New York Times in 1965 and becoming its chief southern and civil rights correspondent. Klibanoff grew up in Alabama and reported for what is now the Sun Herald and other smaller papers in Mississippi.

Roberts joined the Merrill College in 1991, after 18 years as executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, where his staff won 17 Pulitzer Prizes. He took a leave of absence from 1994 to 1997 to serve as managing editor of The New York Times. In 1993, he won the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award for Distinguished Contributions to Journalism.

Klibanoff is now managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He spent 20 years at The Philadelphia Inquirer as a metro reporter, national correspondent, business editor and deputy managing editor.

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For more information contact: Matthew C. Sheehan at 301.405.8320.

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