WLP Publishing Series: Jelani Cobb

Jelani Cobb is the Ira A. Lipman Professor at Columbia Journalism School and a staff writer for the New Yorker. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Sidney Hillman Award for Opinion and Analysis, and the Peabody Award and the Walter Cronkite Award for his documentary work in 2020. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright and Ford foundations, as well as Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. He was a 2018 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Born and raised in Queens, New York, he was educated at Jamaica High School, Howard University, and Rutgers University, where he received his doctorate in American history in 2003. Prior to arriving at Columbia, he taught at the University of Connecticut and Spelman College in Atlanta.

He is the author and editor of several books, including The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress, The Essential Kerner Commission Report, and The Matter of Black Lives. He has also co-produced and co-written several documentaries, including Policing the Police and Whose Vote Counts? both of which aired on PBS Frontline in 2020. He currently directs the Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia University.

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