Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist and Author of A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League

Program Title - Finding Hope in the Unseen: Bridging the Gap Between Race & Class in America

Ron Suskind, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer, best-selling author and teacher, is a rare talent, electrifying audiences both in person and in print. His book, A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League follows the three-year path of an African American religious honor student from a blighted Washington, D.C. high school through the end of his freshman year at Brown University. Launched by the Wall Street Journal series for which Suskind won the 1995 Pulitzer® Prize for Feature Writing, Hope is one of the all-time most acclaimed books on the subject of race and class.

Prior to the Wall Street Journal, Suskind was on staff at the New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times and was editor of Boston Business magazine. During the 1990s, he was a reporter and senior national affairs writer for the Wall Street Journal. While there, he wrote stories for the paper's front page dealing with poverty, race and class, as well as award-winning stories on varied topics—from union busting in Louisiana to the secret life of Warren Buffett to the mysterious death of Boston Celtic star Reggie Lewis. Suskind is a regular essayist for Life360, an original series produced by PBS. He has been a commentator on National Public Radio, taught Advanced Journalism at Harvard University and written about various subjects for national magazines—including satire for Harper's and political analysis for the New York Times Magazine. He is now working on his next book, engaged in journalistic projects for television and writing for various national magazines. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, he lives in Washington, DC with his wife, the writer Cornelia Kennedy Suskind, and their two sons.

A stirring speaker, Suskind gives his audience an intimate account of the national discussions he sparked on affirmative action, faith, higher education, and how to bridge the gap between race and income. He has been hailed as “the best of inspiration and edification,” by Gerald Murphy, Dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Education. At the podium, Suskind weaves stories of his life and cutting-edge journalistic work into a moving, vivid American tapestry.