Hank Klibanoff

Georgia Connections

• Atlanta, Fulton County, Former Managing Editor, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Notes of Interest

Hank Klibanoff was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he shared the 2007 Pulitzer Price in History with co-writer Gene Roberts for their book "The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation." The book examined in vivid detail how the nation's press corps, black and white, covered the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), himself involved in the early years of the struggle, called the book a "powerful, moving, well-researched account of the courage of the media at its finest hour and a must-read for every American." The Puluitzer was an honor that climaxed a career of more than 30 years in journalism for Klibanoff.

Hank Klibanoff was born March 26, 1949, in Florence, Alabama, where he had his first job as a newspaper reporter in the summer of 1970. He received a B.A. in English from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971 and an M.S.J. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1973. He had a variety of journalistic assignments as a reporter and freelancer in Mississippi before joining the staff of the Boston Globe in 1979. In 1982, he went to work for the Philadelphia Inquirer where he was at various times deputy city editor, business editor, Sunday editor and deputy managing editor. From 2002 until he left in 2008, Klibanoff was managing editor at the AJC. Currently, he is managing editor/consultant for Cold Case Truth and Justice Project, a multi-media, multi-partner enterprise that uses investigative reporting to discover the truth behind unsolved racial murders that occurred during the 60-year civil rights era in the South. He makes his home in Atlanta.