30.09.2025
Nikole Hannah-Jones
on Democracy, Resistance and The Politics of Memory
In a moment when the foundations of American democracy are being shaken – and its past reshaped to serve partisan ends – Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and creator of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, returned to De Dépendance for a conversation on the erosion of democracy, the tools for resistance and the politics of what we remember.
Against the backdrop of sweeping changes in America’s cultural and political institutions – where history is increasingly mobilized as a tool of control – this talk confronted the urgent fault lines of the present: Who gets to define a nation’s story? What happens when education becomes a battleground? And how can independent journalism hold its ground in a landscape scarred by censorship, revisionism, and collective amnesia?
Moderated by Hani Salih, this evening with Nikole Hannah-Jones offered a powerful lens on America’s political crossroads and explores the deep connections between history, democracy, and the struggle for justice – at a time when all three are under threat.
Participants
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Nikole Hannah-Jones
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine, and creator of the landmark 1619 Project. In 2017, she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, known as the Genius Grant, for her work on educational inequality. In 2016, Hannah-Jones co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a training and mentorship organization geared toward increasing the number of investigative reporters of color. In 2021, she was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world.
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Hani Salih
Hani Salih is a researcher, writer, editor and curator sitting at the edge of a long list of disciplines and practices; Starting with architecture all the way over to systems and policy. Hani is interested in understanding wider contexts to social and cultural phenomena and is currently doing this through his teaching work in architecture and design education.
