Charles Blow
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Creator of @BlowTheStack Substack, @Harvard fellow. @MSNBC political analyst. Lecturer. Author of #TheDevilYouKnow & #FireShutUpInMyBones, Ex-@NYTimes columnist
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Articles by Charles Blow
The desperate, failed attempt to keep one Florida district Black
Efforts to consolidate the Black vote here were frustrated, handing the Democratic nomination to a white party insider A major plot line of the hyper-partisan, mid-decade redistricting arms races – launched at the urging of Donald Trump – has been the elimination of traditionally Black congressional seats in the south.
The desperate, failed attempt to keep one Florida district Black
A rally against the redrawing of a congressional map outside the Florida state capitol in Tallahassee on 28 April. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images A major plot line of the hyper-partisan, mid-decade redistricting arms races – launched at the urging of Donald Trump – has been the elimination of traditionally Black congressional seats in the south.
‘Don’t I deserve a little grace?’: Lonnie Bunch on pressure from Trump and leaving the Smithsonian on his own terms
Updated Fri, October 2, 2026 at 9:57 AM UTC Lonnie Bunch III, founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington DC on 28 May 2019.Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP “For the last two years, everything has implied getting rid of me,” Lonnie Bunch III, the Smithsonian Institution’s secretary, said on Thursday.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Sits Down With Charles Blow for an Exclusive Interview with The Root
Under the soaring ceiling of the stately Governor’s Room in New York City’s City Hall, the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century — and its first Democratic Socialist — responded to an array of questions exploring his views on issues important to African Americans. The 34-year-old was characteristically charming, but also deftly evasive, sidestepping the more challenging questions.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Sits Down With Charles Blow in an Exclusive Interview
Under the soaring ceiling of the stately Governor’s Room in New York City’s City Hall, the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century — and its “first” Democratic Socialist — responded to an array of questions exploring his views on issues important to African Americans. The 34-year-old was characteristically charming, but also deftly evasive, sidestepping the more challenging questions.
Trump Withdraws NYT Subpoenas and Georgia's Midterm Battle
On The Tea with April Ryan, April caught up with Charles Blow, a journalist, author, and former New York Times columnist They talked about Trump walking back his threat to subpoena the Times, how Georgia is raising the stakes for the midterms, and unpacked how Black Americans constantly struggle against political oppression and racially-targeted violence.
The Tea ft. Charles Blow
Live! Archive of live conversations with special guests on news essential to safeguarding against autocracy. Get your morning dose of democracy on Coffee with The Contrarians, with Co-founders Jen Rubin and Norm Eisen. Jared Bernstein answers your questions about all things economy on Let's Do Lunch. Plus, breaking legal and political news. Archive of live conversations with special guests on news essential to safeguarding against autocracy.
Charles M. Blow praises men who step up Original
On this Father's Day, thoughts from contributor Charles Blow about growing up without a dad: I know what it feels like to miss a father, the hole it leaves in a boy where his dad should be. My parents split when I was five. The part of my father that the breaking of our family didn't take, his alcoholism did.
Charles M. Blow (@charlesmblow)
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Charles Blow: An ode to New Orleans from a CNN commentator returning to the ‘magical’ city Original
I understand why so many writers have been drawn to New Orleans — Paris’s American country cousin, the city by the river rising from the swamp. I understand why Tennessee Williams said of the city, “Here surely is the place that I was made for, if any place on this funny old world.” I grew up in a small town in North Louisiana but didn’t visit New Orleans until I was in college. From the time I first set foot in the city, though, I knew I was home.
New video series from Press Forward showcases solutions in local news - Editor and Publisher
Posted Wednesday, October 22, 2025 10:31 am Press Forward is launching a new docuseries, “Reimagining Local News,” that shines a light on the people and models across the country writing a new story for local news. Hosted by journalist and author Charles M. Blow, the series explores what’s working in local news and how solutions are in reach. You can watch the series now at ReimaginingLocalNews.com.
The crisis facing local newspapers
By Charles M. Blow CBS News Local news is in crisis. By some estimates, more than 3,200 print newspapers have vanished since 2005. According to the nonprofit Rebuild Local News, the number of newsroom employees has declined 60 percent since 2000 – a collapse comparable in scale to the coal industry. And on average, two newspapers close each week.
The crisis facing local newspapers
By Charles M. Blow CBS News Local news is in crisis. By some estimates, more than 3,200 print newspapers have vanished since 2005. According to the nonprofit Rebuild Local News, the number of newsroom employees has declined 60 percent since 2000 – a collapse comparable in scale to the coal industry. And on average, two newspapers close each week.
Charles M. Blow on the crisis facing local newspapers Original
Our commentary is from former New York Times columnist Charles Blow, on a disappearing staple of communities everywhere: Local news is in crisis. By some estimates, more than 3,200 print newspapers have vanished since 2005. According to the nonprofit Rebuild Local News, the number of newsroom employees has declined 60 percent since 2000 – a collapse comparable in scale to the coal industry. And on average, two newspapers close each week.
Book Review: ‘Baldwin: A Love Story,’ by Nicholas Boggs
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From celebrating Juneteenth to the erasure of Black history: Charles M. Blow on America today Original
The political analyst and former New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow shares his thoughts about our nation's newest federal holiday, Juneteenth: Last month I visited Emancipation Park in Houston, a park established in 1872 by the formerly enslaved as a space to celebrate Juneteenth, the day in 1865 that the news of emancipation was proclaimed in Galveston, Texas.
My farewell column
I never wanted to be a writer. I was an information designer. Becoming a columnist, like so many things in my career, was a bit of a fluke. As I end this column, I’d like to share the strange way that it began. kAmp7E6C >2?J J62CD :? %96 }6H *@C< %:>6D’ ?6HDC@@> 2D 2 8C2A9:4D 65:E@C 2?5 =2E6C E96 8C2A9:4D 5:C64E@C[ E96? 2 D9@CE DE:?E 2E }2E:@?2= v6@8C2A9:4[ x 42>6 324< E@ E96 %:>6Di x 925 >6E E96 6I64FE:G6 65:E@C 7@C =F?49] w6 4@?G:?465 >6 E@ C6EFC?
Mi columna de despedida
Nunca quise ser escritor. Yo era diseñador de información. Convertirme en columnista, como tantas otras cosas en mi carrera, fue hasta cierto punto producto de la casualidad. Ahora que termino con esta columna, me gustaría compartir la extraña forma en que comenzó. Tras muchos años en la redacción del Times como editor gráfico y más tarde director gráfico, seguidos de un breve período en la National Geographic, volví al Times: me había reunido con el editor ejecutivo para comer.
Charles M. Blow: My farewell column - Editor and Publisher
Posted Friday, February 7, 2025 11:22 am I never wanted to be a writer. I was an information designer. Becoming a columnist, like so many things in my career, was a bit of a fluke. As I end this column, I’d like to share the strange way that it began. After many years in The Times’s newsroom as a graphics editor and later the graphics director, then a short stint at National Geographic, I came back to The Times: I had met the executive editor for lunch. He convinced me to return to the paper.
Opinion | My Farewell Column Original
I never wanted to be a writer. I was an information designer. Becoming a columnist, like so many things in my career, was a bit of a fluke. As I end this column, I'd like to share the strange way that it began. After many years in The Times's newsroom as a graphics editor and later the graphics director, then a short stint at National Geographic, I came back to The Times: I had met the executive editor for lunch. He convinced me to return to the paper.
Stop Feeling Stunned and Wounded, Liberals. It's Time to Fight Back. Original
The first week of President Trump's return to power was a flurry of provocations, of attacks on the rule of law and raw exertions of power. Part of the point, it seemed, was to bury his opposition in the blizzard, to rapidly follow each assault with another, often greater, affront to democratic norms. The effect was that many people, including many politicians, were left too stunned and disoriented to begin forming a cogent opposition.
Dejé de beber hace cuatro años y todavía me enfrento a la cultura de la bebida
Quizá te propusiste en Año Nuevo reducir la cantidad de alcohol que bebes o dejar de beber por completo. Tal vez te hayas comprometido a pasar el mes de enero sin beber. Tal vez te alarmaste cuando el cirujano general dijo la semana pasada que el consumo de alcohol es una de las principales causas prevenibles de cáncer, y que las bebidas alcohólicas deberían llevar etiquetas de advertencia más parecidas a las de los cigarrillos.
Charles Blow: When you quit drinking, judgment follows
Maybe you made a New Year’s resolution to cut down on the amount of alcohol you drink or to stop drinking altogether. Maybe you’ve committed to Dry January. Maybe you were alarmed when the surgeon general last week said that consuming alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer and that alcoholic beverages should carry warning labels more like those for cigarettes. Whatever the reason, a reconsideration of alcohol in our lives is in the air.
Nondrinkers still face judgment
AP is live outside a court in New York as President-elect Donald Trump faces sentencing for his New York hush money conviction after the nation's highest court refused to intervene. With Trump 10 days from inauguration, Judge Juan M. Merchan has indicated he plans a no-penalty sentence calle…
I quit drinking four years ago. I’m still confronting drinking culture
Maybe you made a New Year’s resolution to cut down on the amount of alcohol you drink or to stop drinking altogether. Maybe you’ve committed to Dry January. Maybe you were alarmed when the surgeon general recently said that consuming alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer and that alcoholic beverages should carry warning labels more like those for cigarettes. Whatever the reason, a reconsideration of alcohol in our lives is in the air.
Dejé de beber hace cuatro años y todavía me enfrento a la cultura de la bebida
Quizá te propusiste en Año Nuevo reducir la cantidad de alcohol que bebes o dejar de beber por completo. Tal vez te hayas comprometido a pasar el mes de enero sin beber. Tal vez te alarmaste cuando el cirujano general dijo la semana pasada que el consumo de alcohol es una de las principales causas prevenibles de cáncer, y que las bebidas alcohólicas deberían llevar etiquetas de advertencia más parecidas a las de los cigarrillos.
I Quit Drinking Four Years Ago. I’m Still Confronting Drinking Culture.
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Opinion | I Quit Drinking Four Years Ago. I’m Still Confronting Drinking Culture.
Maybe you made a New Year’s resolution to cut down on the amount of alcohol you drink or to stop drinking altogether. Maybe you’ve committed to Dry January. Maybe you were alarmed when the surgeon general last week said that consuming alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer, and that alcoholic beverages should carry warning labels more like those for cigarettes. Whatever the reason, a reconsideration of alcohol in our lives is in the air.
I Quit Drinking Four Years Ago. I'm Still Confronting Drinking Culture.
But quitting didn't come without fears. I didn't know who I would be without alcohol. I didn't know if I would still be fun and funny. More important to me, I didn't know if I would be able to access my creativity without some way of achieving transcendence. In her autobiography, the late singer Natalie Cole describes how, at one point in her career, "I had really believed that I needed drugs to perform at my best." At one point, I worried that the poetry of language would elude me without drinking.
The risks and infinite rewards of new friendships after 50
For many years I followed a no-new-friends ethos, one that became cemented in popular culture with the 2013 release of the track “No New Friends” by DJ Khaled, featuring Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne. The logic holds that only established friendships are true and trusted, because they have endured, and since they have endured, there is no space or utility for new friends. But under even the mildest scrutiny, this reasoning crumbles. All friends were new at some point.
Charles M. Blow: Democrats, take a time off
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New friends after 50? Yes, please!
For many years I followed a no-new-friends ethos, one that became cemented in popular culture with the 2013 release of the track “No New Friends” by DJ Khaled, featuring Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne. The logic holds that only established friendships are true and trusted, because they have endured, and since they have endured, there is no space or utility for new friends. But under even the mildest scrutiny, this reasoning crumbles. All friends were new at some point.
New Friends After 50? Yes, Please!
The other was moving to Atlanta just before I turned 50. In my decades in New York, I had settled into what felt like a natural pattern: treating the friends I first met in the city as my only true friends and severely restricting new friendships, even as some old friends drifted away. When I moved, that pattern was disrupted. I was thrown into newness, an unfamiliar social ecosystem in which most people were new to me.
Serving the innocent children of incarcerated parents
Deonte Smith was just 3 years old, and his brother just a baby, when their mother, Yolanda Diamond, was incarcerated. She faced consecutive life sentences plus 25 years after crashing into another vehicle while fleeing the scene of a burglary, killing two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a child. Smith, now 34, remembers family and friends occasionally taking him, as a small child, to see his mother.
Serving the innocent children of incarcerated parents
Deonte Smith was just 3 years old, and his brother just a baby, when their mother, Yolanda Diamond, was incarcerated. She faced consecutive life sentences plus 25 years after crashing into another vehicle while fleeing the scene of a burglary, killing two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a child. Smith, now 34, remembers family and friends occasionally taking him, as a small child, to see his mother.
Charles M. Blow: Serving, and saving, the innocent children of incarcerated parents
Deonte Smith was just 3 years old, and his brother just a baby, when their mother, Yolanda Diamond, was incarcerated. She faced consecutive life sentences plus 25 years after crashing into another vehicle while fleeing the scene of a burglary, killing two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a child. Smith, now 34, remembers family and friends occasionally taking him, as a small child, to see his mother.
Serving the innocent children of incarcerated parents | Charles M. Blow
Deonte Smith was just 3 years old, and his brother just a baby, when their mother, Yolanda Diamond, was incarcerated. She faced consecutive life sentences plus 25 years after crashing into another vehicle while fleeing the scene of a burglary, killing two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a child. Smith, now 34, remembers family and friends occasionally taking him, as a small child, to see his mother.
Donate This Holiday Season: Children of Incarcerated Parents Need Your Help
This column is part of Times Opinion's 2024 Giving Guide. Read more about the guide in a note from Times Opinion's editor, Kathleen Kingsbury. Deonte Smith was just 3 years old, and his brother just a baby, when their mother, Yolanda Diamond, was incarcerated. She faced consecutive life sentences plus 25 years after crashing into another vehicle while fleeing the scene of a burglary, killing two sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a child.
Blow: Trump's victory and the end of the rainbow coalition
Throughout our history, Black leaders have championed the idea of a multiracial coalition that would upend the white-dominated American political system. In "Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880," W.E.B. Du Bois bemoaned the lack of economic and political solidarity between Black and poor white Americans.
King, Jackson and Obama Had a Dream. Trump Might Have Ended It. Original
Throughout our history, Black leaders have championed the idea of a multiracial coalition that would upend the white-dominated American political system. In "Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880," W.E.B. Du Bois the lack of economic and political solidarity between Black and poor white Americans.
Election Day bomb threats raise two big questions
The nature of terror is that a threat doesn’t have to be fulfilled in order for it to work. On Election Day in Fulton County, Ga., the county with the largest Black population of any county in the state, authorities had to contend with several bomb threats aimed at polling places. I met Khalid Kamau, the mayor of South Fulton, at Feldwood Elementary School, one of the polling places in his city that was targeted with a threat.
Por qué el alegato final de Trump está lleno de 'conversaciones de vestuario'
Hacia el final de la campaña presidencial de 2016, el mundo se enteró de la cinta de “Access Hollywood” en la que Donald Trump se jactaba de manosear a las mujeres. Días después, se disculpó por esos comentarios, pero los descartó como “charla de vestuario”. Hoy no: en lugar de minimizar defensivamente su vulgaridad, se ha inclinado hacia ella. En lugar de preocuparse de que su comportamiento grosero pueda alienar a las mujeres, lo está aceptando.
Why Trump's Closing Argument Is Full of 'Locker Room Talk' Original
Near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, the world learned about the "Access Hollywood" tape in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women. Days later, he apologized for those comments but dismissed them as "locker room talk." Not today: Instead of defensively downplaying his vulgarity, he has leaned into it. Instead of worrying that his loutish behavior might alienate women, he's embracing it.
Charles M. Blow: When patriarchy trumps race
For more than a year, as I’ve talked to Black men and voting organizers, I’ve picked up on discontent with the Democratic Party from some Black men, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it or how widely that sentiment stretched. Apart from my reporting, polling suggests an erosion of Democratic support among Black men, though I remained somewhat skeptical.
When patriarchy Trumps race | Charles M. Blow
For over a year, as I’ve talked to Black men and voting organizers, I’ve picked up on discontent with the Democratic Party from some Black men, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it or how widely that sentiment stretched. Apart from my reporting, polling suggests an erosion of Democratic support among Black men, though I remained somewhat skeptical.
Opinion: When patriarchy trumps race | Chattanooga Times Free Press
For over a year, as I've talked to Black men and voting organizers, I've picked up on discontent with the Democratic Party from some Black men, but I wasn't sure what to make of it or how widely that sentiment stretched. Apart from my reporting, polling suggests an erosion of Democratic support among Black men, though I remained somewhat skeptical.
When Patriarchy Trumps Race Original
For over a year, as I've talked to Black men and voting organizers, I've picked up on discontent with the Democratic Party from some Black men, but I wasn't sure what to make of it or how widely that sentiment stretched. Apart from my reporting, polling suggests an erosion of Democratic support among Black men, though I remained somewhat skeptical.
Blow: Harris may need more than ‘joy’ to seal the deal
“If Donald Trump were just to shut up for a few days, he would be elected president,” but he just doesn’t understand that, pollster Frank Luntz said recently. And he said if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz “would just get real with the American people, that would ensure their election, but they’re too afraid.” But what does “get real” mean?
‘Joy’ Is Working for Harris, but Can It Close the Deal?
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