Emmy Award-winning journalist Jemele Hill will be the featured speaker at the 2024 A. Wade Smith and Elsie Moore Memorial Lecture on Race Relations, hosted by The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU. Hill is the co-founder of Lodge Freeway Media and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. Her 2022 autobiography, “Uphill: A Memoir,” is a character-rich, unapologetically provocative narrative in which Hill reveals her tumultuous childhood, complicated family dynamics and life-saving journey into journalism.

Hill follows a long history of renowned historians, writers and changemakers that have spoken at ASU for the lecture series, including Mamie Locke, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Danny Glover and, most recently in 2023, Ibram X. Kendi. The series is the only endowed lecture at any college or university with a rich, 20-plus-year history featuring guest lecturers on race relations.