DEBORAH D. DOUGLAS is editor in chief of The Emancipator, a digital publication that reimagines the first abolitionist newspapers in the United States. She has served as the Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor at DePauw University and senior leader with The OpEd Project (OEP), changing the shape of the public conversation by amplifying underrepresented expert voices. At OEP, she has led public voices fellowships and programs that include the University of Texas at Austin, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, Yale University, Northwestern University, Global Policy Solutions, the Aspen Institute's New Voices in South Africa, Urgent Action Fund in South Africa and Kenya, and Youth Narrating Our World (YNOW).
While teaching at Northwestern University, she created a graduate investigative journalism capstone on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and taught best practices in Karachi, Pakistan. Douglas served the founding managing editor of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, an award-winning nonprofit news outlet covering poverty, power and policy. She was awarded Chicago’s 2019 Studs Terkel Award. She is among 90 writers and thinkers selected to contribute to “Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019,” Penguin Random House, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keshia N. Blain (Random House, 2021).
