Groundbreaking journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault on chronicling — and making — history

Next Question with Katie Couric

Charlayne Hunter-Gault has spent nearly sixty years chronicling history as a journalist, but when she was just 19 years old, she played a crucial role in making it. On January 9, 1961, she and her classmate Hamilton Holmes bravely walked onto University of Georgia’s campus becoming the first two Black students to integrate the school. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie talks with Charlayne about that historic day and a career that stationed the journalist at some of the most respected media outlets in the country, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and PBS Newshour. No matter the outlet, Charlayne made it her mission to cover “Black people in ways they were rarely portrayed in the media — in their full humanity.” Katie and Charlayne talk about some of her most impactful stories, many of which have been collected into her new book, “My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives.”

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