Ellis Cose

Ellis Cose is one of America's most renowned journalists and media commentators, as well as an author and speaker on several important issues of national and international concern. Cose is the author of Bone to Pick, The Envy of the World, and the best-selling The Rage of a Privileged Class. His latest book is The End of Anger: A New Generation's Take on Race and Rage (Ecco/HarperCollins). A regular commentator on television and radio, Cose has appeared on NBC's Today Show, Nightline, Dateline NBC, ABC World News, ABC's Good Morning America, the PBS "Time to Choose" election special, Charlie Rose, CNN's Talk Back Live, and a variety of other nationally televised and local programs. A sought-after keynote speaker, he has spoken at scores of universities (Amherst College, the University of Illinois, the University of Georgia, Northwestern, the University of Michigan), to press groups (the Press Association in Jamaica and the Sigma Chi association in Chicago), and in the corporate arena.

A longtime columnist and contributing editor for Newsweek magazine (1993 through 2010) and former chairman of the editorial board and editorial page editor of the New York Daily News, Cose began his journalism career as a weekly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times—becoming, at the age of 19, the youngest editorial page columnist ever employed by a major Chicago daily. He has been a contributor and press critic for Time magazine, president and chief executive officer of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, chief writer on management and workplace issues for USA Today (where he has also served as an occasional columnist and member of the board of contributors), and a member of the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press. He has received fellowships or individual grants from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others, and has won numerous journalism awards including four National Association of Black Journalists first-place awards.

The End of Anger is a meditation on race and a contemporary look at the decline of black rage, the demise of white guilt, and the intergenerational shifts in how blacks and whites view and interact with each other. In the heady aftermath of President Obama's election, conventional wisdom suggested that the bitter, angry, and destructive elements of discrimination were ebbing at last and America was becoming a post-racial nation. But with this dawning age that promised so much came shifting demographics and a newfound seat of rage in the polarizing Tea Party movement, even as black optimism gained ground, giving rise to questions about assumed truths concerning race in America.

Combining the talents earned from a lifetime in journalism with the insights and thoughtfulness of a close observer of the American experience, Cose offers a fresh, original appraisal of our nation at this extraordinary time, tracking the diminishment of black anger and investigating the "generational shifting of the American mind." Weaving material from myriad interviews as well as two large and ambitious surveys that he conducted—one of black Harvard MBAs and the other of graduates of A Better Chance, a program offering elite educational opportunities to thousands of young people of color since 1963—Cose offers an invaluable portrait of contemporary America that attempts to make sense of what a people do when the dream, for some, is finally within reach, as one historical era ends and another begins.

In his capacity as president of Ellis Cose, Inc., he is executive producer, host, and writer of "Against the Odds," a multimedia documentary series. The project profiles individuals who have overcome tremendous adversity. It debuted in 2008 in more than 100 radio markets in the United States—including eight stations in the top 11 markets. In 2009 the series was continued with four hour-long radio documentaries, which are being distributed by Public Radio International.

Besides the four National Association of Black Journalists first-place awards, Cose has also received the University of Missouri medal for career excellence and distinguished service in journalism, and two Clarion awards. He was also named the 2002 winner of the New York Association of Black Journalists' lifetime achievement award, winner of the 2003 award for best magazine feature from the National Association of Black Journalists, as well as the winner of two New York Association of Black Journalists' first place 2003 awards for commentary and magazine features. In 2004 Cose was named the first recipient of the newly inaugurated annual Vision Award from the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. In 2006 he won a Unity Award for commentary and also shared in a first place award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He also won the first place 2009 award for commentary from the New York Association of Black Journalists as well as the North Star Foundation's distinguished journalist award for 2009. For several years, he was a judge for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and is a member of the selection committee for the Chancellor Award for career achievement in journalism at Columbia University.

A Chicago native, Cose holds a master's degree in science, technology, and public policy from George Washington University.