George E. Curry

George E. Curry is a journalist, keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. From 2001 until 2007, he served as editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) News Service in Washington, DC. Curry's work at the NNPA ranged from being inside the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases to traveling to Doha, Qatar to report on America's war with Iraq.

Curry writes a weekly syndicated column for the NNPA and the column "Beyond the Spin" for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Before joining the NNPA, he was editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine for seven years. Curry is past president of the American Society of Magazine Editors, the first African American to hold the association's top office. Before taking over as editor of Emerge, Curry served as New York bureau chief and as a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Prior to joining the Tribune, Curry worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Sports Illustrated magazine.

Under his leadership, Emerge won more than 40 national journalism awards. Curry is proudest of his four-year campaign to win the release of Kemba Smith, a 22-year old woman who was given a mandatory sentence of twenty-four and a half years in prison for her minor role in a drug ring. In 1996, Emerge published a cover story titled "Kemba's Nightmare." President Clinton pardoned Kemba in 2000, marking the end of "Kemba's Nightmare." A movie based on her life is scheduled to release this year.

As a reporter for the Tribune, Curry covered the 1984 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson and the vice presidential campaigns of Geraldine Ferraro and the senior George Bush. Curry accompanied Jesse Jackson to Rome in 1985 for an audience with Pope John Paul II. In 1992, Curry covered the presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and the vice presidential campaign of Senator Al Gore.

Curry is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who Among Black Americans. He was editor of the National Urban League's 2006 State of Black America report. Curry is the author of Jake Gaither: America's Most Famous Black Coach, and editor of The Affirmative Action Debate and The Best of Emerge Magazine. He also contributed chapters to three anthologies: The Darden Dilemma: 12 Black Writers on Justice, Race and Conflicting Loyalties, edited by Ellis Cose; Walter Mosley's Black Genius: African American Solutions to African American Problems; and Bill Clinton and Black America, edited by DeWayne Wickham.

Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Curry graduated from Druid High School before enrolling at Knoxville College in Tennessee. At Knoxville, he was editor of the school paper, quarterback and co-captain of the football team, a student member of the school's Board of Trustees and attended Harvard and Yale on summer history scholarships. While working as a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, Curry wrote and served as chief correspondent for the widely-praised television documentary, "Assault on Affirmative Action," which aired as part of the Frontline series on PBS. He was featured in a segment of "One Plus One," a national PBS documentary on mentoring.

Curry was part of the weeklong Nightline special, "America in Black and White." He has also appeared on CBS Evening News, World News Tonight, The Today Show, 20/20, Good Morning American, CNN, C-SPAN, BET, Fox Network News, MSNBC and ESPN. The National Association of Black Journalists named Curry its 2003 Journalist of the Year.

After delivering the 1999 commencement address at Kentucky State University, Curry was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. In 2000, Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, also presented him with an honorary doctorate following his commencement speech. Later that year, the University of Missouri honored Curry with its Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.

Curry became the founding director of the S. Louis Minority Journalism Workshop in 1977. Working with the local chapters of the National Association of Black Journalists, he established similar workshops in Washington, DC and New York City. During the 2006-2007 school year, Curry served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Mississippi Valley State University, commuting once a month from Washington, DC and supplementing his visits with online interaction with students.

His work with aspiring journalists has not been limited to the US. Curry has conducted journalism workshops for teens in Germany and in 1995 directed a program that brought together college students in the US and those studying journalism in Senegal to produce two newspapers for the African/African American Summit in Dakar, Senegal. His work in journalism has also taken him to Egypt, England, France, Cuba, Ghana, Nigeria, Mexico, Canada, and Italy.

Curry is chairman of the Knoxville College Board of Trustees and serves on the Board of Directors of the Kemba N. Smith Foundation, St. Paul Saturdays, a leadership training program for young African American males in St. Louis, and Young DC, a regional teen-produced newspaper. He was also a trustee of the National Press Foundation, chairing a committee that funded more than 15 workshops patterned after the one he directed in St. Louis. Curry is a member of the National Speakers Association and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. His speeches have been televised on C-SPAN and reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day magazine.