Author Profile
Salim Muwakkil
Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is the host of “The Salim Muwakkil” show on WVON, Chicago’s historic black radio station, and he wrote the text for the book HAROLD: Photographs from the Harold Washington Years.
As an editor for In These Times for more than 25 years, Salim Muwakkil has forged a reputation as one of the country’s most insightful writers on issues of African-American culture and politics.
Muwakkil started his journalism career as reporter for the Associated Press in Newark, New Jersey shortly before graduating from Rutgers University with a BA in Political Science. He soon moved on to become a copy editor and then managing editor at Muhammad Speaks-Bilalian News, the largest black-owned publication in the country.
Upon moving to Chicago, Muwakkil joined In These Times’ staff and became a contributing columnist to both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.
Muwakkil has also written for the Washington Post, Chicago Reader, The Progressive, Newsday, Cineaste, Chicago Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Z Magazine, the Toronto Star, Emerge Magazine, The Black Scholar, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Utne Reader.
Muwakkil is a frequent contributor to “Chicago Tonight” and “Beyond the Beltway,” two Chicago-based public affairs programs.
Muwakkil has won a variety of journalism awards including the “Top Ten Media Heroes of 1994,” from the Institute of Alternative Journalism, the “Black Rose Achievement Award for 1997,” from the League of Black Women, the 2001 Studs Terkel Award for Journalistic Excellence from the Chicago-based Community Media Workshop and the 2004 Lillian Award for Excellence in Journalism, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
He was also a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute.
In his spare time, Muwakkil serves as a board member for the Progressive Media Project and the Chicago-based Public Square. He has been a faculty member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest’s Urban Studies Program, and an adjunct professor at Columbia College, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Most Recent Articles
-
Features
Black and Blue Chicago
A recent spate of police shootings of African Americans underscores longstanding mutual distrust. more »
-
Features
Black Chicago Divided
Class and generational conflicts intensify, as African Americans cope with the Great Recession. more »
-
Culture
Malcolm’s X-Factor
Why did Manning Marable’s attempt to demystify Malcolm X provoke such conflict? more »
-
Views
The Muslims Are Coming!
In a strange kind of delayed response, the American public seems to be in a more Islamaphobic mood more »
-
Views
Race Doesn’t Trump Class, at Least in Chicago’s Mayoral Race
In a heated exchange during a Chicago mayoral debate last month, candidate Carol Moseley Braun accused candidate Patricia more »
-
Views
Chicago’s Torture Cop Awaits His Sentence
G. Flint Taylor should be basking in the glow of vindication as he awaits the January 20 sentencing of more »
-
Views
Media Blackout In the Age of Obama
The election of the nation's first black president has done little to improve media coverage of the nation's more »
-
Views
The New Black Publicity Party
Right-wing media catapulted the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) into national infamy this summer with an exaggerated emphasis more »
-
Views
Tavis Smiley and Al Sharpton Face Off
Criticizing President Barack Obama is a hard sell in the black community. Even with the Great Recession wreaking more »
-
Culture
On Air With Black America
Chicago's only black-owned talk radio station gives voice to a complex people still struggling to be heard. more »
SAVE 53% OFF