Oct. 24, 1997
Contact: Julius Williams, (785) 864-4351; story by Mary Jane Dunlap, (785) 864-8853
PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING WASHINGTON POST REPORTER TO SPEAK
LAWRENCE -- Leon Dash, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post, will talk about his investigative stories on problems of the urban underclass Oct. 27 and 28 at the University of Kansas.
A special projects reporter, Dash won a 1995 Pulitzer Prize for his series "Rosa Lee's Story," which focused on the role of poverty, crime and heroin in the life of a Washington, D.C., family. Published in September 1994, the series became a book, "Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America," published in 1996.
Dash will speak on "Rosa Lee and Me" at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27, in KU's Multicultural Resource Center auditorium. Dash will focus on the growth of the underclass and the conditions of crime, poverty and drug abuse that continue to challenge U.S. policy makers.
At 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in 107 Green Hall, the law school, Dash will discuss his current special projects investigative piece, "Young Male Killers: America's Urban Street Wars."
Dash's visit to KU is sponsored by the School of Law in partnership with KU's Office of Minority Affairs and the Black Student Union, a campus organization.
In addition to his public talks, Dash will meet with students, faculty members and administrators in KU's schools of Journalism and Social Welfare, the Institute for Life Span Studies and other KU units. He plans to meet with KU researchers interested in how journalism and other mass-communication media affect law and policy on pressing social problems.
Dash grew up in Harlem and is a 1968 graduate of Howard University, Washington, D.C. Except for a stint in Kenya with the Peace Corps, Dash has worked at the Washington Post since 1965, when he began as a copy boy. He wrote a series about teenage pregnancy in 1986, "When Children Want Children." This series was published as a book in 1989, "When Children Want Children: The Urban Crisis in Adolescent Childbearing."
His honors include awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Capitol Press Club and the Overseas Press Club.
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