View Blackmon's Odyssey medal acceptance speech.
Douglas Blackmon is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, a searing examination of how slavery was resurrected long after the Emancipation Proclamation and persisted deep into the 20th century. As The Wall Street Journal’s bureau chief in Atlanta, he manages the paper’s coverage of the Southeastern U.S., including coverage of publicly traded companies and key news and issues, including race, immigration, poverty, politics and, in recent years, global warming and hurricanes. Blackmon’s stories or the work of his team have been nominated by the Journal for Pulitzer Prizes four times.