Gene Roberts has a legendary journalism career spanning 50 years and including at The Detroit Free Press, The News & Observer and The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. He served as the Southern bureau chief for The New York Times in charge of its civil rights coverage from 1965 to 1967. He also reported from Norfolk, Va., when the state was closing public schools to avoid integration after the Brown decision, the spread of the sit-in movement across the South and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s marches in Durham, N.C. After leaving the Times, he became one of the nation's most respected editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer, which won 17 Pulitzers under his leadership. He currently teaches a course on the press and the civil rights movement at the University of Maryland, and is writing a book on the era. He holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He currently sits as a member of the Harvard University Nieman Fellowship selection committee. He serves on the Board of Governors for Columbia University Seminars on News Media and Society and chairs the Pulitzer Prize Board for awards in arts, letters and journalism. In 1993, he won the National Press Club's Fourth Estate Awards for distinguished contributions to journalism.