Salamishah Tillet

PULITZER PRIZE–WINNER | CONTRIBUTING CRITIC-AT-LARGE, THE NEW YORK TIMES
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF ALL THE RAGE: NINA SIMONE AND THE WORLD SHE MADE
FOUNDER, A LONG WALK HOME

Named as one of the most important contemporary feminist writers by Gloria Steinem, few figures bridge cultural insight and creative justice as compellingly as Salamishah Tillet. A Pulitzer Prize–winning critic, acclaimed scholar, and visionary activist, Tillet has spent her career illuminating the intersections of art, politics, and social change. She is a Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies and Creative Writing at Rutgers University–Newark, where she also directs New Arts, a public art initiative engaging the campus and broader city.

Tillet is a Contributing Critic-at-Large for The New York Times, where she writes with clarity and depth about literature, film, music, and cultural expression. In 2022, she received the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for columns examining race, genre, and Black perspectives as the arts and entertainment world responded to the Black Lives Matter Movement. Her work has also been featured in The Atlantic, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Time, The Guardian, New York Review of Books, and on BBC, NPR, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and The CBS Sunday Morning Show.

Her writing is matched by a decades-long commitment to art and activism. In 2003, she co-founded A Long Walk Home with her sister, Scheherazade Tillet. The Chicago-based nonprofit uses art to empower young people and end violence against girls and women. The organization grew out of Tillet’s own healing journey and the performance piece Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS), which combined photography, dance, and spoken word to tell a story of survival and resilience. Today, A Long Walk Home runs programs such as the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute and landmark initiatives including the Rekia Boyd Monument Project and the Black Girlhood Altar, centering Black girlhood in public space and collective memory.

She was the co-host and co-producer of the Because of Anita podcast with Cindi Leive of The Meteor. In 2022, Because of Anita won Webby and Gracie Awards. In 2023, she, with A Long Walk Home, A Call To Men, and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, founded The Courage Fund to raise awareness and provide resources to those dedicated to ending sexual violence against women and girls in the United States.

At Rutgers University–Newark, Tillet has redefined how a public university can engage with civic life. As the former director of Express Newark, a center for art and social change, and New Arts, a public arts studio, she has curated and supported art projects that connect history, community, and activism. Notable examples include A Call to Peace, which invited artists to design prototype monuments responding to Newark’s contested public memorials, and Will You Be My Monument?, a mural created after the city removed its Columbus statue, depicting a young Black girl as a symbol of belonging and imagination. These projects challenge audiences to reconsider who and what is commemorated in public space.

Her curatorial reach extends nationally. In 2023, she co-curated Beyond Granite: Pulling Together, part of the first-ever outdoor exhibition on the National Mall, which asked, “What stories remain untold on the National Mall?” The exhibition featured works by artists including Derrick Adams, Ashon T. Crawley, Tiffany Chung, vanessa german, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and Wendy Red Starr.

Tillet’s books deepen these explorations of art and justice. She is the author of Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Imagination (2012), In Search of The Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece (2021), and the forthcoming All the Rage: Nina Simone and the World She Made, which blends memoir, biography, and criticism to examine the impact of Nina Simone’s life, music, and political legacy on Tillet and her generation of artists today.

Her most recent projects continue this work. With the Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2025), she is collaborating with her sister Scheherazade Tillet on a project exploring Black girlhood, play, and intergenerational memory, including a visual and written portrait of Black families in Martha’s Vineyard. As an Emerson Collective Fellow, she is curating a citywide public art exhibition, The Wards of Newark: Then and Now, featuring Manuel Acevedo and his multiyear photo documentation of Newark’s changing urban landscape, and how issues of belonging, immigration, and gentrification impact the city today.

The Carnegie Foundation, the Lindback Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Schomburg Center for Scholars-in-Residence, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, and the Mellon Foundation have supported her work. Tillet graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude with her BA in English and African American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s in the Art of Teaching from Brown University, a Master’s in English and American Literature, and a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University. In 2023, she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Moore College of Art and Design.

Tillet has presented her work at Duke, Princeton, NYU, Spelman College, and hundreds of other institutions. Across criticism, curation, scholarship, and nonprofit leadership, she demonstrates how storytelling and art can illuminate the past, confront the present, and inspire more just futures.

Jason King

Jason King is the Dean of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, and the former Chair and founding faculty member of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University (2002-2023).  A multi-talented scholar, journalist, author, musician, performer, producer, songwriter, radio and video host, and event curator, Jason has written about music for publications like Pitchfork, Slate, The Village Voice, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Spin, Billboard, Buzzfeed, and Vice. He was the host and co-producer of NPR Music’s flagship video documentary series Noteworthy, featuring superstars like Dua Lipa and Alicia Keys. He has served as a music marketing and branding expert in high-profile cases for artists like Drake, Jay Z, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. Recent projects include producing You Are my Friend: A Concert Tribute to Sylvester at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; hosting and and producing Spotify’s 2022 Sound Barrier original podcast; writing and producing a four part series on The Beatles called A Shot of Rhythm and Blues, hosted by Meshell Ndegeocello; co-curating The Hip-Hop Mixtape exhibition at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles; and serving as a consulting producer for Morgan Neville’s LEGO-driven feature film bio of Pharrell Williams, Piece by Piece. He will soon make his own feature film directorial debut. Jason was an inaugural member of Q-Tip’s Hip-Hop council at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Black Genius Brain Trust, and he serves on the advisory board of the Journal of Popular Music Studies. IG: @jasonkingsays.

USC Thornton School of Music

Founded in 1884, the USC Thornton School of Music is one of the world’s premier music schools. Blending the artistry of a conservatory with the breadth of a leading research university, Thornton prepares students to excel as performers, composers, educators, and cultural leaders across genres. The school is recognized internationally for pioneering programs in popular music, screen scoring, and music industry studies, and is committed to shaping the future of music education through innovation, collaboration, and community impact.