Michele Norris, "The Grace of Silence and the Power of Words"

Award-winning journalist and co-host of NPR's longest-running national program, All Things Considered, Michele Norris will present “The Grace of Silence and the Power of Words.” Norris's 2010 book, The Grace of Silence, started out as a quest to uncover how America talked about race in the wake of the Obama presidential election. What resulted was what Norris calls an "accidental memoir." Named one of the year's best books by The Christian Science Monitor, the book became an eye-opening family history lesson revealing her own family's racial legacy and the larger conversation surrounding race in America. The book has also led to the spinoff blog, "The Race Card Project," and a deeper look at our attitudes and beliefs about race.

Before coming to NPR, Norris was a correspondent for ABC News, a post she held from 1993 - 2002. As a contributing correspondent for the “Closer Look” segments on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Norris reported extensively on education, inner city issues, the nation's drug problem, and poverty. A four-time Pulitzer Prize entrant, Norris has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2010 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for she and co-host Steve Inskeep’s program, “The York Project: Race and the 2008 Vote”; the 2009 Journalist of the Year award from the National Association of Black Journalists; the National Association of Black Journalists' 2006 Salute to Excellence Award, for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina; the University of Minnesota's Outstanding Achievement Award; and the 1990 Livingston Award.