Charles M. Blow

Why you should listen

In his biweekly New York Times column and as a political analyst at MSNBC, Charles M. Blow takes on today’s most challenging and critical issues, including racial equity, social justice, presidential politics and police violence. His memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, won a Lambda Literary Award and the Sperber Prize and was later adapted for the stage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Blow’s second book, The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, advocates for a radical reconsideration of the Great Migration that took place in the United States from the 1910s to the 1970s.

Blow has been at The New York Times since 1994, and as their graphics director led them to a best of show award from the Society of News Design for their information graphics coverage of 9/11. He appears as a commentator on outlets such as CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Al Jazeera and HBO, where The Devil You Know is being developed into a full-length documentary.