Democracy Now!'s Juan González on 40 Years of Fighting for Racial and Social Justice in Journalism

In a Democracy Now! special broadcast, we spend the hour with our own Juan González, who recently gave three “farewell” speeches in his hometown of New York before he moved to Chicago. González is an award-winning journalist and investigative reporter who spent 29 years as a columnist for the New York Daily News. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award and author of many books, including the classic “Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America,” which has just been reissued and published in Spanish. His other books include “News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.” González is also the founder and past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Before beginning his career in journalism, he spent several years as a Latino community and civil rights activist, helping to found and lead the Young Lords Party during the late 1960s. He has also been the co-host of Democracy Now! since it started in 1996, and is continuing to co-host the show from his new home in Chicago. In the first part of our special, we feature his address in November at the Columbia Journalism School reflecting on “Forty Years of Fighting for Racial and Social Justice in Journalism.”