Hank Klibanoff

Hank Klibanoff is a Professor of Practice and Teaching Professor in Emory University's Creative Writing Program in the Department of English, as well as the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism. A veteran journalist, he amassed over 35 years of experience as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Mississippi, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and as managing editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Klibanoff earned a bachelor's degree in English from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Both institutions have honored him as a distinguished alumnus.

At Emory University, Klibanoff directs the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project, co-teaching a course where undergraduate students investigate unsolved and unpunished racially motivated murders from Georgia's civil rights era. He also works with professional journalists on the broader Civil Rights Cold Case Project across the South. Klibanoff co-authored The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Knopf, 2007) with Gene Roberts, which received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History. His podcast Buried Truths, produced by WABE public radio in Atlanta, won the Peabody Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2019. In June 2021, President Joseph R. Biden nominated him to the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, with confirmation by the U.S. Senate in February 2022. Klibanoff serves on the John Chancellor Excellence in Journalism Award Committee at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, advisory boards for the National Press Foundation, Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Fellowships, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and as chairman of the VOX Teen Communications advisory board. His endeavors have significantly shaped communications, journalism education, civil rights historical research, and public engagement with unresolved injustices.

Professional Email: hklibanoff@emory.edu