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MLK 2023 Featured Guest and Speaker

Emmy Award–winning journalist and author Byron Pitts, co-host of ABC’sÌýNightline, will be the keynote speaker for ×ÔοÊÓÆµ University’s 2023ÌýMartin Luther King Jr. Day commemorative event.ÌýThis year’s topic isÌýÌýÌý

The event is scheduled from 6:30 to 8 p.m. CT on Monday, Jan. 16, at Blair School of Music’s Ingram Hall and is open to the ×ÔοÊÓÆµ community. The event also will be livestreamed.ÌýÌý

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Pitts isÌýknown for covering high-profile international news stories over the span of a decades-long career, including investigations related to this year’s MLK theme of transforming unjust systems. HeÌýbecame one of CBS News’ lead reporters during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and won an Emmy Award for his breaking news coverage. As a war correspondent embedded with U.S. troops, he covered the Iraq War, including coverage of the fall of the Saddam Hussein statue in 2003. In the early 2000s, he also reported from the front lines of Hurricane Katrina, the war in Afghanistan, the military buildup in Kuwait, theÌýElián GonzálezÌýcase, the 2000 Florida presidential vote recount and the refugee crisis in Kosovo.ÌýÌýÌý

He earned a national Emmy Award for news coverage of a Chicago train wreck in 1999. He was recognized for his work by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2002, and he has received numerous Associated Press awards and six regional Emmy Awards.Ìý

Pitts is the author ofÌý,Ìýwhich chronicles his life from struggling with illiteracy in childhood to becoming a top news anchor.Ìý