Derrick Z. Jackson

Derrick Z. Jackson is an award-winning journalist and author. He was the 2021 winner for Excellence in Opinion Writing in the Scripps Howard Awards for his coverage of systemic racism in the United States’ response to Covid-19 for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Grist. His book “The Puffin Plan,” that chronicled the restoration of puffins to the coast of Maine, co-written with Steve Kress, won the 2021 first-place Gold Award in Teen Nonfiction in the Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Awards. He was a 2001 Pulitzer finalist “for his perceptive, versatile columns on such subjects as politics, education and race” for the Boston Globe. Jackson is a 10-time contest winner from the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), most recently in 2017 for an essay on the late Muhammad Ali. Jackson is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 1976 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He holds three honorary degrees, from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Salem State University and the Episcopal Divinity School.