Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an award-winning journalist with more than 50 years in the industry, extending her work at various times to all media.

She is the author of four books—the latest an e book, called Corrective Rape, which details the devastating way some men in South Africa attempt to “correct” gay women’s sexual identity; To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement,” is a historical narrative for young readers grade nine and up ,published in by The New York Times and Roaring Brook Press. Her other two books are , New News Out of Africa: Uncovering the African Renaissance, Oxford University Press and “In My Place, “ a memoir of the Civil Rights Movement, fashioned around her experiences as the first black woman to attend the University of Georgia, in 1961, now a . Vintage Press paperback.

In 2005, she returned to NPR as a Special Correspondent after six years as CNN's Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent. She joined CNN in April 1999 from National Public Radio, where she worked as the network's chief correspondent in Africa and was awarded a Peabody in 1998 for her coverage of the continent.

Hunter-Gault worked for 20 years with the PBS NewsHour, alternately as substitute anchor and national, as well as international correspondent . And she has now returned to the NewsHour as Special Correspondent, doing an unprecedented series called Race Matters, focusing on solutions to American’s ongoing race problem.

She began her journalism career as a reporter for The New Yorker, to which she still contributes; then worked as a local news anchor for NBC's WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.; and as the Harlem bureau chief for The New York Times. Her numerous honors include two Emmy awards and two other Peabody awards—the first for her work on "Apartheid's People," a NewsHour series about South African life during apartheid. Over the years, she has been the recipient of numerous other awards for her work and in August, 2005, she was inducted in the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and in 2015 was inducted into the Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame.

Hunter-Gault is a sought after public speaker, holds some three dozen honorary degrees and is on the board of The Committee to Protect Journalists.

She is married to businessman Ronald T. Gault, with whom she produces Passages--four South African Wine varietals. And she has two adult children, Suesan, an artist and singer and Chuma, an actor.